Legal orgs have sent letters to LSO Treasurer Peter Wardle demanding access to report
Organizations representing hundreds of lawyers are calling on the Law Society of Ontario to release a confidential report on former chief executive officer Diana Miles’ controversial pay hike, arguing that the report should at least be made available to licensees if not the general public.
The president of one of those organizations says she finds it troubling that Ontario’s larger legal associations have not issued similar calls for transparency.
“It’s too much to put on the shoulders of individual licensees to take on the juggernaut that is the Law Society – that is our regulator,” Law and Mental Disorder Association president Anita Szigeti told Law Times on Monday. Szigeti also serves as secretary of Women in Canadian Criminal Defence.
“This is a crisis moment in time when lawyer organizations need to use their collective power to speak up for their vulnerable members and to demand transparency and accountability from our regulator,” she says. “It's very concerning that they have remained silent.”
But others are less certain that the bar should prioritize access to the LSO report, which looks at the circumstances that led to Miles’ base pay increasing to $1 million from just under $600,000.
Kathryn Manning, president of the Ontario Bar Association, said in a statement to Law Times on Tuesday that the organization is considering “whether a battle for production of the report is worthwhile.” The OBA represents more than 16,000 lawyers, judges, notaries, academics, and students across Ontario.
“We already know that the process followed was critically flawed, transparency was undermined, and the standard we expect of our regulator was not met,” Manning said of the controversy. “There are benchers who are ready and able to build a better process and then move on to the LSO's critical work – public protection. They have what they need to take immediate action. It's time for solutions.”
Manning added that the OBA “has to turn our energies to other battles.
“The rule of law and the fundamental role of lawyers in civil society is under full scale attack in places and ways we never thought possible. We must protect it,” she said. “Also, Ontario lawyers will be called upon to help clients navigate the increasingly choppy waters of a tariff war and we must be there to give them the services and support they need to do that.”
In a March 7th letter sent to LSO Treasurer Peter Wardle, Maya Shukairy, president of WiCCD, invited Wardle to meet with the national organization “in order to obtain further information about this situation.”
“What is happening is not fair to our members. We deserve transparency. As criminal defence lawyers, we especially value and cherish the concept of full and fair disclosure,” Shukairy wrote.
“Our members deserve an explanation, and deserve to understand how and where their money is being spent.”
Shukairy asked Wardle to suspend this year’s annual LSO fees for WiCCD members. “Female criminal defence lawyers are some of the most deserving of a break on fees, and this should fit within LSO’s budget, given what it was prepared to pay to the former CEO,” she wrote.
The LSO’s annual fee for lawyers in 2025 comes to $2303.98 after tax.
The same day, Szigeti sent another letter to Wardle with similar sentiments, on behalf of LAMDA. Members of the organization were shocked when they learned of Miles’ pay increase, but they were “somewhat placated” when the LSO announced that former associate chief justice of Ontario Dennis O’Connor would investigate the matter, Szigeti said.
“LAMDA members are dismayed, however, once again, to learn that this report will not be released to licensees. There is now a purported privilege being claimed (as ‘private and confidential legal advice’) on this report,” Szigeti wrote.
“While it may not want to disclose to the public directly, the society should release the report to licensees, whose fees were used to pay for the report.”
Szigeti asked Wardle to give LAMDA’s Ontario members a refund or waiver of their 2025 LSO fees. “LAMDA members need the LSO’s assistance where the society has the funds to alleviate harsh practice conditions, and it is now clear that the LSO does have vast resources at its disposal,” she wrote.
WiCCD and LAMDA collectively represent fewer than 1,000 members across Canada. Most of those members are lawyers, but some are paralegals and law students.
On Tuesday, Wardle agreed to meet with the two organizations. In separate letters, Wardle acknowledged the organizations’ disappointment and said the O’Connor report “has helped us to make important personnel changes and has pointed to ways to improve our governance.”
However, he added that by deciding not to release the report, “Convocation has balanced the interest in transparency as a public institution against the highly sensitive nature of the discussion in the opinion about specific employees of the law society.
“As you know, matters related to employee performance and employment relationships are confidential,” Wardle wrote.
The organizations sent their letters to Wardle shortly after the LSO announced Miles’ departure from the organization last week. The announcement came the same night that Convocation, or LSO’s governing board of benchers, met to discuss the results of O’Connor’s report under highly secretive circumstances that multiple sources related to Law Times.
Wardle would not confirm who decided that Miles should leave the LSO. However, under the regulator’s bylaws, benchers have the authority to appoint the LSO’s CEO “on such terms as it considers appropriate.” The rules also stipulate that the CEO “shall be responsible to Convocation.”
Sources said that benchers had to sign undertakings to view the O’Connor report. Wardle said that Convocation voted to keep the report confidential since O’Connor’s opinion “is privileged legal advice.”
Since the announcement of Miles’ departure, some lawyers have taken to social media to call for the report’s release.
But Szigeti suggests the social media posts are only the tip of the iceberg.
“I can tell you that I've spoken to many, many, many, many lawyers, not only within LAMDA and WiCCD, but… in different practice areas,” she says. "Everybody is united in the disappointment and anger that they are experiencing.”
She says that some lawyers have expressed concerns that speaking out publicly could invite retaliation from the LSO. She also suggests that many others are keeping quiet because they had been vocal supporters of the Good Governance Coalition – the political faction with which the majority of the LSO’s benchers are currently affiliated.
Law Times reached out to multiple Ontario lawyers’ organizations to ask if they would be taking a stance on whether the LSO should release the O’Connor report, including the Federation of Ontario Law Associations, the Advocates’ Society, the Women's Law Association of Ontario, the Criminal Lawyers’ Association, the Employment Lawyers Association of Ontario, and the Defence Counsel Association of Ottawa.
The CLA pointed to a post on X in which the organization said it would be closely monitoring the LSO’s response. The ELAO said it would not be taking a position on the issue, while the DCAO said it would discuss the matter internally.
The other organizations did not respond to Law Times' inquiry.
WiCCD and LAMDA “represent vulnerable members of the bar – people who are working very hard, generally at legal aid rates. Women in criminal defense who are at risk of leaving the practice because of how difficult it is for us to exist in the profession,” Szigeti says. “We have the courage to speak out.
“But where are the bigger associations?” she asks. “Where are the comments and concerns from those organizations with thousands of members who have a really big and powerful voice?”
