Lawyers in
The increase of $68 per member will bring the
total membership fee to $1,509 next year. Combined with the LawPro base
premium, the 31,000 lawyers in the province will be paying an average of $4,209
each.
"The need for an increase is primarily as a
result of additional resources for the law society's regulatory division," says
Malcolm Heins, LSUC's chief executive officer, noting that membership fees have
been reduced 19 per cent over the last four years.
The 2006 annual fee of $1,509 breaks down as
follows:
· general
membership fee increase of $55, to $1,015 from $960
· county
law library levy increase of $13 to $219 from $206
· compensation
fund unchanged at $200
· capital
and technology levy unchanged at $75
The 2006 draft budget was presented to
Convocation on Oct. 20 with little debate — except over the funding of
LibraryCo. In the draft, LibraryCo's levy was to remain at $206 and the finance
committee recommended that it use more than $400,000 of its
"LibraryCo decided that it will present a budget
that did not involve using its — I use the word reserve or surplus — to reduce
the amount of fees our members will be charged for LibraryCo in the levy," said
Clayton Ruby, chairman of the finance committee. "That's the decision they
made. It's not the last word on the subject.
"We are responsible for deciding what the levy
is for LibraryCo. We did not tinker with the substance
By a close vote of 22-18, Convocation disagreed
with Ruby's assessment and voted to leave the reserve alone, increasing the
LibraryCo levy by $13 per member to meet LibraryCo's 2006 budget.
"LibraryCo has recognized from the outset, as
has the County and District Law Presidents' Association and has the law
society, I believe, that we've been living in a bit of a dream world, and we've
been talking about the amount slightly in excess of $200 that each year has
been allocated for the purpose of funding libraries through member levies
because those levies of slightly in excess of $200 a year simply do not cover
the expenses of providing services across the province to members," said
Bencher Gavin MacKenzie, chairman of LibraryCo.
He said if LibraryCo kept using the reserve for
operating expenses, it would be exhausted by approximately 2007, at which time
it would be faced either with the need for a dramatic fee increase or a
dramatic cutback in services.
Bencher Judith Potter said part of the problem
is that some benchers aren't familiar with LibraryCo and how it services many
lawyers in the province outside the Greater Toronto Area.
"I see eye glazing around the table, and when
we talk about numbers and figures, it's not of major interest, although it is
of major importance to a lot of the people in this room," she said.
"Respectfully I would think, to me it's very,
very obvious that the profession wants to pay an increase, and that increase
goes to LibraryCo, so we can have that desktop delivery. We can have our books.
We can have our libraries because that's competence," he said.
"And as regulators, we should be saying this is
wonderful because we want to make sure that our lawyers have got the cutting
edge in the library system because without our books, without our computers,
without all of the stuff that LibraryCo is doing, we may as well fold our tents
because things are happening out there, folks. It's just not dollars and
cents."
Bencher Larry Banack said maintaining the levy
and asking LibraryCo to dip into its reserve would not affect library service.
LibraryCo runs 48 county and district law
libraries across the province: five large regional law libraries, 16 area
medium-sized libraries, and 27 small local libraries.
Most libraries are staffed on a part-time basis
and 16 are staffed on a full-time basis. The staff report to the local county
law associations.
