OBA members have long been leaders in upholding the principles that the legal community holds dear – equality, innovation, professionalism, access to justice. By engaging in robust idea-exchange, with open minds and expansive perspective, lawyers have devised creative initiatives and critical solutions to move the profession forward.

The work our members spearheaded during the pandemic to keep courts operating, clients well served and a lawyer community connected in a largely remote world  provides dramatic examples, but there are countless, daily examples of this cooperation: in our persuasive advocacy, in our cutting-edge professional development, in our modernization momentum, and in the strides we’ve made in cultivating inclusive workplaces and setting the next generation of lawyers up for success.

Central to all these endeavours – to accomplishing anything of consequence for the profession and the public we serve – is civility. Civility is paramount to productive discourse and progress. While lawyers have led the way, civility may be something we have to work more intentionally and thoughtfully to preserve in an increasingly polarized world.

It’s for this reason that I’ve focused my presidential mandate on providing lawyers with the education, framework, opportunities and space to engage constructively, carefully and civilly – perhaps to find common ground, but more importantly to commit to principles that will allow us to disagree without becoming divided and to express our opinions without becoming polarized. Differences of opinion are healthy, but willful entrenchment is not.  

As lawyers, we can’t afford to become entrenched. I feel strongly that we should continue making the protection of civil discourse a priority – to guard our reputation as a profession that resolves issues through dialogue, context, respect, and a willingness to entertain other perspectives.

To that end, the OBA will continue building on our Hard Conversation series and Diversity Dialogues, with education and facilitated exchange – featuring appropriate context and expertise – that will thaw the chill around certain issues, and hopefully build mutual understanding, without sacrificing respect and civility.

We will also develop new resources and programs that will feature speakers and provide strategies that have worked to bridge seemingly implacable divides, to assist lawyers in navigating difficult conversations in their own firms and departments.

A key way we hope to keep conversation productive and to prevent the kind of discord that it’s hard to come back from, will be creating and engendering buy-in from the bar on guidelines that we all agree to follow when highly divisive issue arise.

When all is said and done, I want the bar to have the tools necessary to engage in conversation that solves the complex issues we are confronted with – without harming those who are trying to find solutions and forge new ways forward.  I look forward to working with my insightful, impassioned and collegial OBA community to even the trenches and advance our shared goals in the months ahead.