Top Canadian Commercial Litigator to Focus Her Mandate on Improving Discourse and Overcoming Division
TORONTO – Incoming OBA President Kathryn Manning sees a bar more divided than it has ever been before in her 26 years of practice and she is determined to do something about it when she takes the reins of the Ontario Bar Association (OBA) on September 1st.
“After a period of unprecedented cooperation and unity that saw lawyers come together to meet the challenges of the pandemic, there seems to be unprecedented polarization in the bar across a number of issues,” says Manning, founding partner at DMG Advocates LLP in Toronto. “I intend to turn the tide with a mandate that will foster constructive discourse and counter corrosive division within the legal community.”
The OBA’s Hard Conversations speaker series and the Diversity Dialogues initiated by some OBA practice sections this year will be key tools of Manning’s mandate.
New presidential initiatives will also include education to assist firms and legal departments in facilitating their own productive dialogue on difficult and divisive issues.
“We have seen, over the years, strategies that have worked to bridge seemingly implacable divides, and we want to introduce lawyers to the promise of these strategies through education and conversation,” Manning says. “We will engage the bar by bringing in speakers who have found success where it didn’t seem possible. Ultimately, we would like to create and engender buy-in from the bar on a set of principles that we all agree to follow when highly divisive issues arise.
“The OBA has consistently worked to bring lawyers together in various ways and to leverage our strength in exploring the nuances of complex issues, examining them from different perspectives, and fostering mutual understanding. I look forward to building upon this legacy and willingness to engage and listen with open minds, and to working with a diverse Board to move the profession forward.”
For more information:
Michael Speers
Media and Communications Specialist
mspeers@oba.org
416-602-6146