These are certainly challenging times. A reckoning by many accounts. Lawyers are not immune to these turning tides. As in-house counsel, we have witnessed firsthand the impacts of the recent social upheavals, first as a result of the pandemic and then, over the summer, due to the growing call to address racial inequalities, first in the US and then across the globe.
Ontario licensees are no strangers to the often polarizing nature of the discussion. Witness the sometimes vitriolic response to the implementation by the Law Society of Ontario of the 13 recommendations outlined in the final report of the Challenges Faced by Racialized Licensees Working Group.
That said, the first step to solving any problem is to first acknowledge that there is one. Sometimes, detractors of employment equity, usually referred to as affirmative action (or as our brethren to the south say “reverse discrimination”), argue either that there is no issue or that we all have the same opportunities. But numbers don’t lie.
Women have been in the majority of law school graduates since the mid-90s. Yet, more than 25 years later (that’s nearly two generations of lawyers!), they still represent only a very small proportion of equity partners and senior leaders in the legal field. Unless you really, truly believe that women are objectively inferior lawyers, then unless your firm or department leadership team is composed of at least 50% women, then you just don’t have the best people around the table. This should be reason enough for change!
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