“Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.”
My friend and fellow Bencher Bob Aaron was right on the money when he said at Convocation, “It’s déjà vu, all over again.” Last time the guru of the day was John Carver and his policy governance model; this time the guru is Tim Plumptre of the Institute on Governance.
The recommendation of the Law Society of Upper Canada’s governance task force, which Convocation accepted and which Aaron and I opposed, was, “To approve consultations on principles of governance for the law society with benchers and key members of and other stakeholders within the professions, and the associated budget of $95,000 for the consultations.”
I would be the last bencher to oppose stakeholder consultation, but if my fellow benchers are so concerned about widespread consultation, why don’t they remove the cloak of in-camera from committee meetings, and why aren’t bencher information sessions public too?
Now we have $95,000 of the law society budget, most of which comes out of the pockets of sole practitioners and small firm lawyers, being poured down the governance sinkhole once again.
Tom Heintzman, the chairman of the governance task force, did a masterful job presenting the task force’s recommendation. Heintzman, like many other barrister benchers, is such a good advocate for the causes he believes in that I must hold onto my own beliefs with dear life to stop them from being blown off my head.
Heintzman huffed and puffed about how the task force’s recommendation was only about process and not about ultimate reforms. Process, shmocess! Bob Aaron and I have been down this road before. What starts out as “process” today winds up in reforms down the road tomorrow that would never have passed had they been voted on at Convocation before the process began.
I was naïve when I first became a bencher, but now I have been educated. Over the years I have seen strategies and processes at Osgoode Hall that I never dreamt of before.
When I was a neophyte bencher, the equity committee had money left over from their previous year’s budget which they wanted to keep in addition to their budgetary allotment for the following year.
They wanted the money to devote to a feminist issue. Logically the surplus should not have been carried over, but the chair of equity called for a roll call vote. Newly elected benchers rolled their eyeballs but did not want to dissent and look bad.
The first time the issue of mandatory continuing legal education was to be debated at Convocation was late one afternoon, after many benchers had departed. The chairman of legal education realized the proposal would be lost. He got the matter put over to another Convocation when more benchers would be present, thereby hoping to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.
As for bencher retreats or workshops, they are often for the purpose of laying the groundwork for new initiatives and policies. As for what some of the proposed reforms resulting from the present governance workshop will likely be, they already have been bandied about in information papers and in Osgoode’s back rooms.
Streamlining the governance process, particularly Convocation, by reducing the number of benchers, heads the list of ideas for reform. Should we reduce the number of benchers? Should we do away with some of the ex-officio benchers, such as previous treasurers, or should we at least take away their right to vote?
Should we eliminate life benchers entirely, those benchers who have been elected four times and served 16 years? Now they can attend and speak at Convocation, but they cannot vote.
I told Bencher Aaron, after we were successful in our fourth consecutive election and eligible to become life benchers ourselves after serving our current term, that the office of life bencher would undoubtedly be abolished by then.
Convocation is the last true bastion of democracy at Osgoode Hall. Elected benchers who have been excluded from the inner sanctums of governance at Osgoode Hall can at least get on their feet at Convocation and put forward the views they were elected to represent.
As for the current composition of Convocation’s elected benchers, there are 30 barristers and only five solicitors. Nine of the elected benchers are from large firms, 21 from small or medium-sized firms, and only five are sole practitioners. Hardly representative. Will Convocation be more representative if we winnow the number of benchers down?
These are issues that should be debated now at Convocation. Why are we spending $95,000 of members’ money for yet another workshop and consultation process when we all know what some of the proposed governance reforms will likely be?
Gary Lloyd Gottlieb, a Toronto lawyer, is a Law Society of Upper Canada bencher and a Toronto sole practitioner. His e-mail address is [email protected].
