Canada

The View From Up North: Changing the Complexion Of The Law Society’s Leadership

A hundred years ago it was cool for old, white dudes to run the Law Society, and society in general. It ain’t today.

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If you perused my column a few weeks ago, you know bencher elections are underway in Ontario to elect the 40 lawyers who will govern the Law Society of Upper Canada for the next four years. While writing that column, I discovered two things about the current benchers that didn’t sit well with me: (1) 90% of the current benchers are white; and (2) 97.5% of the current benchers are old.

To sum, LSUC is run by old, white lawyers.

Here’s the thing about the bencher elections: you get a bunch of emails from candidates explaining why you should vote for them. The Law Society puts a voters’ guide online where you can review each candidates’ bona fides. Ninety-five candidates are asking for the privilege of representing the legal profession at the next convocation. With the exception of two candidates, I don’t know any of them personally. I reviewed their profiles. They all look accomplished to me — they’re all lawyers, after all.

Even if we held bencher debates and got the opportunity to challenge each candidate’s viewpoints, I still don’t think I could pick the good ones from the bad ones. Frankly, I don’t even know what it takes to be a good bencher. Smart? Diligent? Cares about the profession? I’m sure all of them meet those criteria.

Still, I did something yesterday that I’ve never done before: I voted.

The elections are run online through Computershare. They send you a “Control Number,” which allows you to log on to a site and vote for up to 20 candidates in Toronto and 20 candidates outside of Toronto.

So, there’s a Control Number linked to my personal email address. Let’s think about that. Computershare knows my personal email and my Control Number. Am I wrong to think Computershare (and maybe others) also know who I voted for? You know, the old, put two and two together. I’m sure Computershare will says its system is totally secure, yada, yada; the voting software prevents anybody from being able to determine who I voted for, blah, blah, blah.

Sponsored

Call me skeptical.

Since my votes hypothetically may be public already courtesy of a 12-year-old Russian hacker who has slithered through Computershare’s ultramodern firewall, I may as well share my votes with you.

Outside Toronto

Braithwaite, Jack
Carlton, Tanya L.
Corbiere, Dianne G.
Graber, Kimberly Dustine
Hameed, Yavar
Horvat, Jacqueline A.
Lachance, Colin J.
Lamb, Dominic J.
Lesage, Michael B.
St. Lewis, Joanne
Strigberger, Daniel
Vespry, M. Anne

Toronto

Sponsored

Austin, Renatta
Burton-Vulovic, Alexander
Durcan, Rebecca Catherine
Gerb, Eldad
Go, Avvy Yao-Yao
Graham, Shawn L.
Groia, Joseph
Lem, Jeffrey W.
Merali, Isfahan
Nishikawa, Sandra Y.
Robichaud, Sean
Rondinelli, Vincenzo (Enzo)
Rosekat, Jeffrey B.
Sanderson, Douglas
Tarantino, Bob
Walker, Tanya C.
Waugh, Tannis Allison

Don’t spend too much time looking at the list. I’ll tell you the common denominator. With the exception of one person (who I’ll explain in a minute), there are no old, white lawyers on that list. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not totally against white people (being one myself), it’s just time for convocation to get younger and less pasty.

I had to choose some criteria for voting. There’s so little to distinguish candidates that I’ve never met from their peers based on a short bio. Thus, I chose to give my votes to people of diverse backgrounds (of all ages) and to white lawyers in the beginning or middle of their careers.

My exception was Joe Groia. He’s my token older white dude (no offense, Joe). I don’t know him, but I’ve heard he’s an exceptional advocate. I think he got screwed in a discipline case the Law Society had no business bringing against him. If he gets elected as a bencher, I think/hope he’ll be an ass-kicker who pushes for change.

The Law Society’s leadership needs to evolve to reflect a changing society. The profession needs to transform to keep up with the challenges of a rapidly globalizing legal market. A hundred years ago it was cool for old, white dudes to run the Law Society, and society in general.

It ain’t today.

That’s the View From Up North. Have a great week.

Steve Dykstra is a Canadian-trained lawyer and legal recruiter. He is the President of Keybridge Legal Recruiting, a boutique recruitment firm that places lawyers in law firms and in-house roles throughout North America. You can contact Steve at steve@keybridgerecruiting.com. You can also read his blog at stevendykstra.wordpress.com, follow him on Twitter (@IMRecruitR), or connect on LinkedIn (ca.linkedin.com/in/stevedykstra/).

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