There was, we can now confidently say, a great deal of rancour in the Ontario legal profession about the Law Society’s attempt to force its members to abide by a “Statement of Principles” acknowledging a non-existent “obligation to promote equality, diversity and inclusion”. This rancour having let to the election last month of slate of benchers pledged to repeal the “Statement of Principles” requirement, there is now a great deal of rancour among the profession’s social justice warrior faction. The #BencherElection2019 hashtag on Twitter leads one to a collection of laments about the profession’s past, present, and future. Of course, the election result suggests that the wailing chorus represents only a limited section of the profession, but it is certainly not a negligible one.
Being a vocal opponent of the “Statement of Principles” requirement, I was, of course, delighted by the election’s outcome. But I too am not especially optimistic about the future of the legal profession as it is currently constituted. I don’t know whether the StopSOP momentum can be kept up in 2023, and in 2027, and in 2031… Perhaps the social justice brigades will have moved on, and the whole thing will no longer be an issue. But I would not bet on it just yet. It’s certainly not inconceivable that a People’s Front of Ontario Lawyers, or an Ontario Lawyers’ People’s Front, will come to run the Law Society at some point. And judging by their role models, when they do so, they will not be taking prisoners.
Fortunately, there is a way to avoid this outcome and, more broadly, the transformation of Law Society elections into a battleground of total culture war, in which liberty is supposedly pitted against equality, and the losers, whoever they may be, fear for the integrity of their souls. It is deregulation. The deregulation of the legal profession is a very good idea on other grounds too, notably for the sake of access to justice, as Ian Mulgrew recently pointed out in the Vancouver Sun. (One particular sub-genre of the post-Bencher election lament consistent of the supporters of the “Statement of Principles” saying that lawyers should worry about access to justice instead of opposing the Law Society’s impositions. I think this is a false dichotomy, but I hope that those who are concerned about access to justice, whatever they might think about the “Statement of Principles”, will join my appeal for deregulation!) There is no reason, really, why the law needs to operate like a medieval guild. But this is not a new idea; just one that needs to be constantly repeated. The possibility of using deregulation as a tension-defusing mechanism is more novel. Still, the case is a rather obvious one.
The reason why the “Statement of Principles” provoked such fierce resistance is that those of us who refuse to submit to state-sponsored imposition of a mandatory ideology were put before a stark choice: trample, in Vladimir Mayakovsky’s words, on the throat of our own song, or lose the right to practice law. The reason why the proponents of the “Statement of Principles” are so aghast at its opponents’ electoral success is that they think it speaks so very poorly of a profession ― and a guild ― to which they too belong, and about which they care (however misguidedly they might do so, by my lights). We are, apparently, stuck together ― at least until the Ontario Lawyers’ People’s Front, or the People’s Front of Ontario Lawyers, can liberate the profession from dastardly dissidents. And we are bound to make each other miserable.
But not if the legal profession were deregulated. There is more than one way of doing this. Ideally, the restrictions on who can provide legal services, and even the lawyer licensing process, would be scrapped. (It would make sense, of course, to continue requiring anyone providing such services to carry insurance appropriate to the nature of the service the person is providing.) But as a second-best alternative, what needs to go is the monopoly of the existing Law Society of Ontario. Let any group of lawyers, subject perhaps to a moderate minimum membership requirement, start up its own law society, with its own licensing process, and its own membership rules. If Lawyers for Social Justice want to require their members to have a statement of principles abjuring whiteness in the name of the gestational parent, the daughter, and the holy ghost, amen to that. If the Cult of Hayek wants to demand a statement of principles demonstrating personal valuing of free markets and the Rule of Law, amen to that too. And if Lawyers for Mere Professional Competence don’t want to impose any such rules, amen to that again, and where can I sign up?
The point is that, in the absence of a monopoly ― if there isn’t one body whose decisions, whether made as a result of (low-turnout) elections or on the basis of revolutionary racial consciousness, have the ability to allow or deny people the ability to make a living ― we don’t have to constantly fight one another about the direction of the profession as a whole. We can and will continue to disagree, but the stakes of the disagreement will be lower. At most, we might be fighting for greater memberships in our respective clubs ― and we will be doing that by trying to persuade people to join us, rather than our opponents, instead of peremptory demands that they adopt our fatal conceits, or else.
Now, despite my professed equanimity, am I really rigging the game in favour of Cult of Hayek here? Why should the supporters of the “Statement of Principles” endorse deregulation? Well, for one thing, because they now know that they are not as popular as they thought. They might make a comeback in four years, but then again, they might not. Deregulation would make it possible for them to organize their affairs on their preferred principles, regardless of their lack of popularity among the broader profession. They could even be the shining light to which more and more lawyers flock, leaving us dinosaurs on the ash heap of history. And even the proponents of the “Statement of Principles” they do come back, it will be over the objections of a sizable part of the profession, and not just the measly 3% who, we are told, refused to tick the “Statement of Principles” box on our annual reports. Instead of advancing their agenda, they will be fighting to eradicate dissent, much more confident now than it was before the last election. And while some of them are aspiring totalitarians who would be quite happy to kick people out of the profession for non-conformity, I do believe that more than a few will blink, especially if there is a lot of kicking to be done. They should conclude that they have better things to do, and get on with the building of social justice in one part of the legal profession.
Of course, right now, it is the opponents of the “Statement of Principles” who will speak with the strongest voice in the affairs of the Law Society of Ontario. Their first order of business, I hope, will be to do what they were elected to do: repeal the state’s imposition on our consciences. But I also hope that they will not stop there. They will need to ensure that such impositions are impossible in the future. But also, that the legal profession in Ontario does not become consumed with the culture war into which it has been plunged. I call on all the newly elected Benchers, but especially on those elected under the StopSOP banner, to support deregulation, for the sake of the legal profession, as well as of access to justice. And I hope that other lawyers, wherever they might stand on the cultural issues du jour, will join this call.
Double Aspect 
Deregulating the profession would have to come from the provincial, or more likely the federal government enacting legislative changes. I doubt its a platform topic that would ever get considered despite whatever social justice vs anti-SOP brouhaha comes up within the profession.
What I find more interesting about the results was the effectiveness of bencher candidates running a campaign as a single-issue ‘slate’ as if they were a political party in an election. I wonder if all future bencher elections are going to be ‘slates’ of candidates rather than the individual campaigns we are used to, and what effect that would have on the LSO.
I don’t think the federal government has anything to do with the regulation of lawyers. Of course the province would need to repeal, or profoundly amend, the Law Society Act. But if the LSO itself asks it to, and especially if this is coming from a cross-ideological coalition, surely such a request would carry a lot of weight.
Interesting suggestion. But even if all the law society’s members opt for deregulation, isn’t it the government that that has to make it happen?
Yes, but if the LSO asks for it, would the government really resist?