Site Launched For SOP Supporters Tribunal Denies Bid To Suspend Lawyer Zordel Tapped For OSC Law Times Poll
Toronto lawyer Corey Shefman has launched a website listing bencher candidates who publicly support the Law Society of Ontario’s statement of principles requirement.
Shefman, an associate at Olthuis Kleer Townshend LLP in Toronto, created the site statementofprinciples.ca amid controversy over the law society’s rule that lawyers must complete a statement related to promoting diversity in the profession.
Shefman says he created the website to make it easier for voters to find information ahead of the April 30 election for the Law Society of Ontario’s next board.
The launch of Shefman’s site comes after other candidates in the election said they were planning to run as part of a slate of people who want to see the requirement nixed.
To be part of Shefman’s site, candidates must publicly support the law society’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion program, as well as the LSO Statement of Principles.
They also must be against re-opening the debate on the SOP, says Shefman.
The website listed 32 candidates who supported the statement of principles, as of Feb. 28.
“My fear was we’d have this organized group . . . getting out the vote and really organizing the opposition, while the rest of us sort of sat on our hands,” says Shefman.
The hearing division of the Law Society Tribunal did not grant the Law Society of Ontario’s request to temporarily suspend the licence of a lawyer accused of making, distributing, possessing and accessing child pornography.
According to the Jan. 31 decision, Law Society of Ontario v. Rooney, 2019 ONLSTH 19, the licensee, Brandon Keven Rooney, may continue to work in accordance to his “very restrictive” bail conditions. The decision, written by tribunal members Janis Criger, Eva Krangle and Frederika Rotter, says Rooney’s charges arose from chat messages, supplemented by pictures, rather than the “acts referred to during the chats.”
Rooney, a tax, wills and estates lawyer called to the bar in 2015, who is no longer employed, has restricted internet use under his bail conditions.
Gardiner Roberts LLP partner Heather Zordel has been appointed to Ontario Securities Commission, CEO Maureen Jensen announced on Feb. 27.
Zordel, who is also a bencher at the Law Society of Ontario, will serve a two-year term, Jensen said in the announcement.
Some bencher candidates say they would scrutinize the Law Society of Ontario’s $2,201 annual fee for lawyers if they are elected. Law Times asked readers if the fee is too high.
A majority of respondents, 74 per cent, said the fee is too high for lawyers such as sole practitioners and recent law school graduates.
A minority, 26 per cent of respondents, said the fee is reasonable when weighed against the total income of most lawyers.
