Convocation: benchers approve research funding to underpin renewed equity agenda

At Convocation Thursday, the Law Society of Ontario approved spending around $250,000 to fund research projects to inform the regulator’s new equity agenda.

The motion carried with 43 in favour, five against, and two abstentions.

The funding will support between five and 10 research proposals. The researchers will present their findings and conclusions at an equity summit in May or June 2025. The law society will invite the law profession’s leaders – chief justices, law firm leaders, senior members of government, law school deans, and general counsels – to attend the summit.

“It's time to make good on our obligations as an institution and our commitment as benchers to do our part to address discrimination and further equity and reconciliation,” said Gerald Chan at Convocation. Chan, a litigator at Stockwoods LLP, is co-chair of the Equity and Indigenous Affairs Committee, which requested the funding.

According to the committee, the requested $250,000 represents 0.16 percent of the law society’s budgeted expenses ($153.3 million) in 2024.

Atrisha Lewis, a bencher and litigation partner at McCarthy Tétrault, said it is time for the law society to bring forward new equity initiatives.

“In the past, the Law Society of Ontario has been a leader on equity issues, and that, unfortunately, has stalled. I think this is a great opportunity for us to resume our role as a leader in the legal professions, generally, and beyond on issues of equity and inclusion.”

According to the committee’s report, the theme of the research and summit will be “equity and reconciliation in a post-pandemic legal system.” The report listed eight suggested research topics:

• Sexual harassment and the retention of women leaders in the legal professions
• The retention and advancement of lawyers from Indigenous communities who are racialized or from other equity-seeking groups
• Remote work, benefits and drawbacks
• Linguistic rights
• Disability in the legal professions
• Diversity in the paralegal field
• The status of Ontario’s internationally trained lawyers
• Client representation and access to justice for Indigenous and marginalized communities

The law society will assemble a panel to confirm themes and refine topics, review research proposals, award grants, monitor the chosen researchers, and prepare the summits.

The research initiative is backdropped by shifting conditions and a need for a “new equity agenda,” said the Equity and Indigenous Affairs Committee report requesting the funding. While the recommendations from the Challenges Faced by Racialized Licensees report have shaped the agenda since 2016, the recommendations have been implemented, repealed, or abandoned and in the meantime, the profession has faced a “more polarized political environment, the COVID pandemic, steady increases in the percentage of internationally trained lawyers in the profession and increased use of technology.” The committee added that as the understanding of equity and reconciliation changes, the law society must be proactive, base its equity agenda on a “timely identification of the issues,” and develop long-term solutions.

Bencher Murray Klippenstein took the law society to court over its denial of information related to the data underpinning the “Challenges Faced by Racialized Licensees” report. He identified methodological problems with the surveys that formed the basis for a series of law society initiatives related to equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI). At Convocation, he warned his fellow benchers that the law society was embarking on the same path.

“We’re doing it again, and I have no confidence – nor should anyone in the profession or the public have confidence – that this will be done in an intellectually acceptable way.”

Klippenstein said the studies would not be about acquiring knowledge but finding like-minded external groups to produce predictable reports.

“Our profession, historically… has been focused on knowledge, evidence, truth, facts – that is not what this is about. This is about an ideology… This is an EDI political propaganda slush fund.”

He added that following the law society’s recent passage of policy on bencher information requests, benchers will be unable to access the information needed to assure accountability.

The committee laid out several advantages to farming out the research rather than conducting it in-house. Sponsoring research is less costly and time-consuming, and outside researchers can delve into issues less controversially. The committee said the law society would clarify that it “does not endorse any methods or conclusions” and maintains the authority to decide whether any researcher will ultimately be invited to present their results at the summit. This gives the law society the flexibility to agree or disagree with any of the researchers’ conclusions. The committee noted that sponsored research does not place expectations on the law society, provided that when it undertakes research, “the legal community sometimes assumes that the research is an inevitable prelude to specific changes in professional conduct rules or programs.”