Tag: lawyers

Learn Your Craft!

Justice Stratas shares his thoughts on succeeding in law school and beyond on the new episode of the Pod

Last month, co-blogger Mark Mancini launched an experiment in podcasting. We are back with a second episode, for which we have had the honour and the pleasure of speaking with Justice David Stratas, of the Federal Court of Appeal. With the new school year starting, we thought we would ask Justice Stratas for his thoughts on succeeding in law school and in the legal profession, with a particular emphasis on advice for first-year students. We are very grateful to him for accepting the invitation!

I am happy to report that the sound is rather better than last time, though no doubt we still have much to learn. Still, we think this should be an engaging and useful episode. You can listen to our conversation right here:

It is also available on Spotify and Google Podcasts. We also hope that you will share it with any law students ― especially first-year students ― you happen to know, or be teaching.

And, for further reading: Justice Stratas writing tips; and also, Mark’s post on “The First Year of Law School“.

Citizens and Judicial Independence

A lawyer’s attempt to spy on a judge is a threat to judicial independence

This is a joint post with Mark Mancini

The goings-on in the Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench seldom make for front-page news. This time is different though, as that Court’s Chief Justice, Glenn Joyal, has revealed that he has been followed and his house visited by a private investigator, and lawyers for the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF) have admitted that they are the ones who hired the investigator (though the Board of the JCCF has disclaimed any knowledge or responsibility for the incident). The JCCF is representing people challenging pandemic-related restrictions on religious worship and apparently thought that it would be a brilliant idea to find out whether Chief Justice Joyal, and seemingly other public figures too, complied with these orders.

This has elicited prompt and entirely proper condemnation. It is, of course, “astonishingly inappropriate” for lawyers to be gathering dirt on judges in their cases, with―presumably―the intent to embarrass them at the “right” moment, should the opportunity arise. If a lawyer is concerned about a judge’s impartiality, he or she needs to raise this with the judge, instead of proceeding in this underhanded fashion. But we want to make a further point here. This situation reminds us of the limited but still meaningful ways in which judicial independence imposes obligations on citizens, as well as on government officials—apart from and in addition to any obligations imposed on lawyers as officers of the court.

Generally speaking, we think of judicial independence as a constraint on what are (especially in the United States) sometimes called the “political branches” of government, i.e. the legislature and the executive. They are required by explicit constitutional provisions or implicit but enforceable constitutional principles to respect the judges’ security of tenure, financial security, and administrative independence. Private citizens cannot meaningfully threaten these incidents of judicial office, which makes it easy to think that judicial independence does not concern them.

Parliamentary rules and constitutional convention also strictly limit the ability of Members of Parliament and Ministers to criticize judges. This serves to avoid creating unconstitutional pressure or, perhaps more likely, the appearance of such pressure on the courts. Here, the position of ordinary citizens is radically different. They must be free to criticize individual judges and the courts as a whole. Judges and courts exercise the public power over citizens; the state’s armed force is wielded at their behest; the power of legislatures and thus the citizens is limited by their pronouncements. Their decisions, no less than the decisions of those who write the laws they apply, must be subject to public scrutiny. For this reason, arguments to the effect that citizens (or specifically the media) must respect judicial independence are sometimes little more than cover for disturbing attempts to silence legitimate criticism of the judiciary.

That said, there is indeed a way in which even private citizens ought to respect judicial independence. This obligation is so narrow that it is seldom worth discussing, but the JCCF’s shenanigans bring it to the fore. As with other fundamental constitutional principles, although the main responsibility for upholding and fostering them rests with officials, citizens should avoid undermining judicial independence, just as they should avoid undermining democracy (say, by making false allegations of electoral fraud) or the Rule of Law (say, by condoning private violence).

The most obvious way in which citizens can undermine judicial independence is by engaging in intimidation intended to make judges decide cases otherwise than in accordance with the judges’ honest understanding of the facts and the law. Indeed, the reason why political actors are so constrained in their ability to criticize the judiciary is precisely that their doing so risks being perceived as intimidatory even if it is meant as respectful disagreement. This is not normally true of private citizens or even the media. But there are exceptions. One of us (Sirota) has written here about some instances of extreme criticism of judges by UK media in the wake of Brexit. As that post suggested, that looked like an attempt to intimidate the courts into ruling in accordance with perceived popular will rather than the law.

The JCCF’s “investigation” of Chief Justice Joyal appears to have been a similar attempt at intimidation, intended to influence a judge’s decision (or at least his decision as to whether or not to recuse himself from a case). It may be worth noting that if, say, the media learn that a judge has been breaking the law―especially if this happens to be a law that the judge in question found to serve some important public purpose―they would surely be justified in reporting on it. But this would be very different matter from what the JCCF seems to have attempted. It is one thing to say that public power has been exercised hypocritically; it is quite another to attempt to direct the exercise of public power toward irrelevant considerations, such as potential embarrassment.

In short, the JCCF broke even the narrow obligations that ordinary citizens owe to the independence of the judiciary. This is apart from and in addition to a possible breach of the distinct, and more onerous, obligations that lawyers to the courts before which they practise. (We express no view on the JCCF lawyers’ actions from that perspective.) The JCCF’s conduct is reprehensible. While it may be tempting to write the situation off as the initiative of one person, it illustrates a deeper willingness of some—even legal professionals—to run roughshod over constitutional principles in service of their own legal or partisan goals. Whatever “advantage” the JCCF thinks it may have attained from its inappropriate investigation is clearly outweighed by the pound of flesh taken from the integrity of the legal system. Over time, these situations open the door to more enterprising litigants and private citizens who seek to maximize their chances of “winning,” however they describe it. The result is the continual erosion of cherished constitutional principles like judicial independence.

The widespread condemnation that has followed was thus reassuring―and we hope that it was the result of a widespread commitment to the principles at stake, and not only of the fact that the JCCF is known for defending views at odds with those of much of the legal profession. Some principles are so fundamental that they must be defended from ideological friend and foe alike.

The Cruel Ritual of the Ontario Bar Exam

Every June, lawyers-to-be in the province of Ontario make the pilgrimage to one of a few cities to undergo the ritualistic exercise of writing the bar exam. For many, the bar exam—otherwise known as the lawyer licensing exam—represents a large part of the process to become a lawyer in the province of Ontario. Students migrate into convention halls with their little Ziploc baggies of highlighters and granola bars, and carry in large bags their heavily indexed binders of material. But the Law Society of Ontario’s (LSO) bar exam is not an exercise in actually demonstrating competence. Instead, the regulator has imposed a search-and-destroy style exam on students, in which the charges must find the right answer buried in their indexed binders. If the goal of the bar exam process is to ensure that students have a minimal level of competence in the profession, it is hard to see how the bar exam achieves that goal.

More to the point, it appears that the only good justification for a bar exam of this sort is to teach students how to take a timed examination under strict conditions. But what purpose does this justification have in terms of competency for a lawyer? Indeed, other that imposing needless anxiety and pressure on already debt-burdened students, how does this ritual do anything for competency? Maybe it could be justified as a tradition that all lawyers should have to bear—but this seems like a thin reed on which to charge students for the pleasure of it.

Instead of taking the bar exam as a given, perhaps Ontario should start from first principles. What is the goal of the licensing process? Starting from the highest level of abstraction, the Law Society Act states that a goal of the LSO is to ensure that “all persons who practise law in Ontario or provide legal services in Ontario meet standards of learning, professional competence and professional conduct that are appropriate for the legal services they provide.” In its “Options for Lawyer Licensing: A Consultation Paper,” the LSO noted the following:

Lawyer candidates are required to demonstrate proficiency in respect of competencies that reflect the minimum requirements of both barristers and solicitors entering the profession in the seven areas of law that are most frequently practised. The current barrister and solicitor examinations provide a means of testing candidates’ abilities in core knowledge, application and critical thinking competencies, irrespective of their educational background.

With this connection to the competency requirement in mind, the LSO also defended its licensing process, citing only one article from American scholars:

The LSO’s licensing examinations are internationally-recognized as high-quality, psychometrically-defensible professional qualification assessments.

That relatively unsupported assertion aside, the LSO to its credit recognized in its consultation paper that the licensing process needed some amendment. In fact, the LSO outlined four options for the licensing process. Two of those options would add a “skills-based” examination to the existing bar exams. Indeed, the option ultimately chosen by the LSO would involve ”[c]onsideration of some form of skills testing in the licensing process.” But there did not appear to be a serious appraisal of whether the bar exam—from a common-sense, regulatory perspective—really advances the goals of competency. In other words, while some form of skills-testing is probably tied closer to a regulatory goal of ensuring competency, I fail to see how the mode of the existing licensing examinations does anything to even basically ensure that competency.

The Ontario mode is not the only one that could be followed. In Manitoba, for example, the focus of the process is almost entirely skills-based rather than examination-based. Instead, through the CPLED program, students are exposed to different tests in oral advocacy, writing, and other areas that are more directly related to lawyer competency. One can at least make the regulatory business case for this mode of testing as connected to testing lawyer competency.

I cannot say the same for Ontario’s whack-a-mole-style licensing examinations. While the LSO tries to suggest that its licensing exam is acclaimed internationally (simply on the basis of one US article), I truly would like to know, at the level of regulatory policy, the justification for a bar exam of Ontario’s sort. From where I am standing, it appears as nothing more than a cruel joke to already-burdened students.

Deregulate All the Lawyers

Why deregulation is the solution to the conflict around the “Statement of Principles” (in addition to being good for access to justice)

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.

Affidavi

Why I oppose the Law Society of Ontario’s “statement of principles”

I have repeatedly argued, here and elsewhere, that the Law Society of Ontario’s requirement that its members “acknowledge[] [an] obligation to promote equality, diversity and inclusion generally, and in your behaviour towards colleagues, employees, clients and the public” by means of a “statement of principles” is wrong in principle, illegal, and unconstitutional. Fortunately, Ryan Alford and Murray Klippenstein are challenging the validity of the Law Society’s demands, backed by the Canadian Constitution Foundation. For my part, I have provided an affidavit for their application (which has been served on the Law Society, but not filed with the court just yet), primarily to illustrate that the “statement of principles” policy applies far more widely than do non-discrimination obligations under the Ontario or federal human rights legislation, to which the Law Society has been endeavouring to misleadingly equate it.

But of course the affidavit is also an opportunity to explain why I oppose the Law Society’s demands, and will not comply with them, so I thought it worthwhile to reproduce an adapted version of it here. (I have removed some of the affidavit-y bells and whistles, so that it reads more like a normal post, and have added some links.) Of course, since an affidavit is meant to be a personal statement, not legal argument, it is a more personal and less argumentative text than my normal posts. Here goes.

I am a Senior Lecturer (a position equivalent to that of an Assistant or Associate Professor) at the Auckland University of Technology Law School. I hold degrees in civil law and common law (BCL/LLB (Hons)) from the McGill University Faculty of Law, as well as a Master’s degree (LLM (Legal Theory) and a doctorate (JSD) from the New York University School of Law.

I was called to the Bar in June 2010 and have been a member of the Law Society of Upper Canada, now the Law Society of Ontario, (the “Law Society”) in good standing ever since. However, I am not and have never been a practicing lawyer. From September 2010 to August 2016, I was a full-time student; since August 2016, I have been a full-time academic. I have no clients and no employees. To my knowledge, no one among my co-workers is a fellow licensee of the Law Society. I have resided in New Zealand since August 2016, and have not resided in Ontario since August 2010.

My Interest in Freedom of Conscience and the Rights of Others

My research interests range broadly across constitutional and administrative law, with a focus on Canada. Among the areas on which I have published is the freedom of conscience and religion. My LLM thesis, subsequently published as a peer-reviewed article, was concerned with religious exemptions and the Rule of Law, exploring the importance of individual conscience in reconciling the claims of religious believers and the demands of legal conformity. Another of my peer-reviewed articles argued that the reference to the Queen in the Canadian citizenship oath infringes the freedom of conscience of those republicans who are required to take it.

In addition to scholarship, I have written about freedom of conscience and religion in multiple posts on the award-winning blog Double Aspect, which I created in 2012, of which I first was the sole author (until July 2018) and now am a co-author. In particular, I have been critical of various attempts in Québec to deprive state employees of their right to wear so-called “ostentatious religious symbols”. I have also published an op-ed on this issue. I also published multiple posts on freedom of conscience of republicans objecting to the citizenship oath.

In this work, as well as in writing on a number of other issues (notably relating to freedom of expression in the electoral context), I have consistently championed the rights of individuals and groups with whom I profoundly disagree, including many whose views I reject. I have defended religious exemptions and other forms of accommodation for religious believers, but I am agnostic. I have defended the freedom of conscience of republicans, but I am a monarchist. I have defended the freedom of expression of student movements and trade unions, but I strongly disagree with the aims of both.

The Statement of Principles Requirement

At the December 2, 2016 meeting of Convocation, the Law Society adopted the requirement that each licensee “create and abide by an individual Statement of Principles that acknowledges [his or her] obligation to promote equality, diversity and inclusion generally, and in [his or her] behaviour towards colleagues, employees, clients and the public”.

I learned of the adoption of the Statement of Principles requirement after the fact, via an e-mail sent by the Law Society on September 13, 2017, entitled “New Obligations for 2017 — Actions you need to take”. That e-mail said that: “You will need to create an abide by an individual Statement of Principles that acknowledges your obligation to promote equality, diversity generally, and in your behaviour towards colleagues, employees, clients, and the public.” Until then, I had not received any correspondence from the Law Society on that topic or which alluded to it, and was not aware that Convocation had adopted the Statement of Principles requirement.

This requirement is applicable to me as a licensee of the Law Society, even though I am not, and never have been, practicing law in Ontario, and, to my knowledge, have no colleagues, students or subordinates who, are licensed to practice law in Ontario. As the Law Society explains on a “Frequently Asked Questions” page on its website, “[i]f you are licensed by the Law Society, you must meet this requirement regardless of whether you are currently practising law or providing legal services”.

I have not complied with the Statement of Principles requirement. I have provided the following explanation for my refusal to do so in my 2017 Lawyer Annual Report:

No existing legislation, primary or delegated, imposes on me or on any lawyer in Ontario an obligation to promote equality, diversity and inclusion. In particular, human rights legislation and the Rules of Professional Conduct prohibit engaging in discrimination, but say nothing of promoting any particular values or ideals. The Law Society has no right to be demanding that its members acknowledge an obligation that does not exist, and one that could not be constitutionally imposed, since in a free society, the state or its instrumentalities, such as the Law Society, have no business imposing values on individuals, much less demanding that individuals promote values. The Law Society’s policy in this matter is no less totalitarian than the arbitrator’s letter denounced by a majority of the Supreme Court in National Bank of Canada v Retail Clerks Int’l Union, [1984] 1 SCR 269.

I have elaborated these views in a series of blog posts, listed below, which I invite the Law Society to read:

https://doubleaspect.blog/2017/10/12/lawless-society-of-upper-canada/
https://doubleaspect.blog/2017/10/19/ones-own-self-like-water/
https://doubleaspect.blog/2017/10/29/profession-of-power/
http://nationalmagazine.ca/Articles/November-2017/The-Law-Society-of-Upper-Canada-should-stick-to-it.aspx
https://doubleaspect.blog/2018/01/21/the-detestable-attestation/

Reasons for My Objection to the Statement of Principles Requirement

I consider myself a conscientious objector to the Statement of Principles requirement, and will not comply with it in the future. As noted above, I have a longstanding interest in freedom of conscience, and have displayed a consistent and public commitment to the rights and freedoms, especially those having to do with belief and expression of belief, of individuals and groups whose religious, moral, or political opinions I do not share. I claim the same freedom for myself.

I regard the Statement of Principles requirement as a violation of my freedom of conscience, freedom of opinion, and freedom of expression. The requirement states that I must promote specific values: equality, diversity, and inclusion. I believe that promoting values requires me to hold them. Otherwise, this promotion would be insincere; indeed, it would be a lie. And it is my sincerely held belief that, as a free individual, I must only hold those values that I freely choose for myself, and must not embrace those values imposed by an authority exercising coercive powers conferred by the state — i.e. the Law Society.

My fundamental belief that a free individual must choose his or her own values, think for him- or herself, and reject the authorities’ views of what he or she must believe in, which animates my scholarship and blogging on freedom of conscience and compels my refusal to comply with the Statement of Principles requirement is a product, in part, of family upbringing, and in part of my broader philosophical views.

As to the former, I was born in what was still the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and my parents took pride in ensuring that my brother and I grew up speaking Russian at home and aware of Russian history after our move to Canada. Part of my parents’ endeavours — indeed a very substantial part — involved exposing us to the stories of Soviet dissidents, people who, in various ways, stood up to a brutally repressive regime for their right to believe and to say their own, rather than the regime’s truth. The circumstances of a free and democratic society such as Canada are hardly comparable to those of the Soviet Union, but the moral imperative to live the truth as one sees it is no less pressing in this more benign setting.

As to the latter, I have been heavily influenced by Lord Acton’s liberalism, and, in particular, his admiration for “[t]he true apostles of toleration” — “not those who sought protection for their own beliefs, or who had none to protect; but men to whom, irrespective of their cause, it was a political, a moral, and a theological dogma, a question of conscience involving both religion and policy”. Hence my advocacy for the freedom of conscience and expression of those with whom I disagree; but one can still, I trust, be a defender of toleration while claiming its benefits for oneself. Lord Acton summarized the role of freedom of conscience in modern history thus:

With the decline of coercion the claim of Conscience rose, and the ground abandoned by the inquisitor was gained by the individual. There was less reason then for men to be cast of the same type; there was a more vigorous growth of independent character, and a conscious control over its formation. The knowledge of good and evil was not an exclusive and sublime prerogative assigned to states, or nations, or majorities.

It is my most deeply and conscientiously held belief that I must defend “the ground gained by the individual”, and the individual’s prerogative to maintain his or her independent character. I must resist if I can, and certainly lend no support to the attempts of “states, or nations, or majorities” — including a majority of the Benchers of the Law Society — to claim for themselves the “sublime prerogative” of knowing good and evil, and cast those subject to their jurisdiction all of the same type.

In addition to this overall outlook, I believe that my professional position as a scholar means that I must resist any attempt to make me adhere to or promote specific values chosen by an external authority. Academic freedom — which I regard not only as an entitlement but also as a responsibility — is a right, and arguably a duty, to pursue truth, however uncomfortable or unpleasant it might be to authorities and others. This pursuit, in my opinion, is incompatible with an undertaking to promote specific values. If my research leads me to conclusions that I or others regard as incompatible with or even opposed to a given value, so much the worse for the value in question.

I would add that, at a high level of generality, I find the values to which the Statement of Principles requirement refers attractive. However, my understanding of these general values is quite different from that which animates the Statement of Principles requirement. I believe in equality before the law, and reject the value of an equality of outcomes. I believe that diversity is primarily desirable if it embraces a plurality of views and perspectives on human flourishing, and not only of demographic backgrounds. Similarly, I believe that inclusion must extend to those who think, and not only those who look, unlike the majority. As a result, expressing support for these values, at the command of the Law Society, would risk communicating adherence to beliefs that I do not hold, and would thus force me to express statements I would not otherwise express.

Concluding observations

As explained above, I refuse to comply with the Statement of Principles requirement. I regard it as incompatible with my rights and duties as a free person, my professional responsibilities as a scholar, and, above all, my conscience.

If the requirement that I hold and promote values chosen by the Law Society is not repealed or invalidated, I will cease being a member of the legal profession in Ontario. This is not an outcome I desire — I would not have paid substantial fees for years for the privilege of this membership which is not necessary for my academic position and from which I derive no financial gain if I did not value the connection with the profession. However, I simply cannot remain a member of the legal profession in Ontario if to do so would violate some of my most deeply held conscientious beliefs.

We’ll see what happens with this. In any case, I am very grateful to Professor Alford and Mr. Klippenstein, as well as Asher Honickman who is litigating the case, and the CCF for fighting the good fight. And don’t forget that, in parallel, there is another front on which this fight can be fought ― the upcoming election for benchers of the Law Society. Vote, and throw the bums who imposed the “statement of principles” requirement out!

Misplaced Zeal

The Law Society of Ontario’s “Statement of Principles” cannot be defended as advocacy for the Law Society

In a post at Slaw, Alice Woolley argues that lawyers’ state of mind, and in particular their personal commitment to the causes they are asked to represent, should not factor into an assessment of whether they are acting ethically ― and further, that this logic applies not only to lawyers’ representation of clients, but also to their compliance with other obligations requiring them to take particular positions, such as the Law Society of Ontario’s “statement of principles” policy. Though no legal ethicist myself, I am inclined to agree with Professor Woolley general point that a lawyer’s advocacy need not be anchored in a personal commitment to a cause ― but only so far as advocacy on behalf clients is concerned. Advocacy outside the context of legal representation, where the lawyer is acting on someone else’s behalf, is a different matter. Professor Woolley’s conflation of these two contexts is, in my respectful view, a serious mistake.

Professor Woolley gives the examples of hypothetical lawyers who undertake to represent clients for reasons that have nothing to do with a personal commitment to their causes. They want to get paid and cannot think of a better way to make their living (or at least, as good a living as the practice of law allows them), and care little for the justice of their clients’ cases. They are, however, competent and hardworking, and successful as a result. These lawyers, Professor Woolley argues, are not truly “zealous” advocates ― they feel no particular zeal ― but it would be wrong to think of them as unethical. “Lawyers’ ethics”, she insists, “are about acting as required by their role and professionalism, not personal belief or commitment.”

That seems right to me. A system of professional ethics that required lawyers to wholeheartedly embrace their clients’ cases would be both unattractive and impracticable. Many clients would have to be unrepresented, because no lawyer would agree with them, while professional regulators would have to become inquisitors to find out how lawyers well and truly felt. Note, though, that so far as the Model Code of Professional Conduct of the Federation of Law Societies is concerned, the idea that representation must be “zealous” is only a gloss, and as Professor Woolley shows an unfortunate gloss, on the actual rule, which rather requires it to be “resolute”. (5.1-1) Professor Woolley argues that her hypothetical halfhearted lawyers are not “resolute”, but I’m not sure about that. To the extent that they work hard and diligently pursue whatever recourse is open to their clients, without regard to their own feelings about them, I would not describe them as lacking in resolve, though this is a point about semantics and I don’t think much turns on it.

Be that as it may, as Professor Woolley suggested I might, I think that the position of lawyers who are not engaged in advocacy on behalf of clients is different from that of those who are. Lawyers arguing clients’ cases are widely understood not to be presenting their own views; conflations of the lawyers’ positions with the clients’ are routinely criticized by lawyers and others ― for example when judges or politicians with experience as criminal defence lawyers are (mis)represented as approving of the crimes of which their former clients were accused (and in many cases guilty). Acting as an advocate for a client, a lawyer is a mouthpiece, a hired gun; the rules of professional ethics not only do not require him or her to inject personal approval into the representation, but positively forbid injecting disapproval.

Outside the special context of client representation, however, these understandings and rules do not apply. Indeed, the Model Code‘s the requirement of resolute advocacy applies specifically in that context: “When acting as an advocate, a lawyer must represent the client resolutely and honourably within the limits of the law” (emphasis mine). The rule does not speak to the lawyer acting as an individual, a citizen, with something of his or her own to say. When expounding and advocating for their own views, lawyers are, it seems to me, held to the same expectations of integrity as other people. If a lawyer gives a talk at a bar association event on the importance of access to justice, yet charges exorbitantly high fees and never undertakes any pro bono work, that lawyer deserves to be condemned as a hypocrite ― even though such a condemnation would be quite inappropriate in response to the same lawyer’s invocation of access to justice in argument on behalf of a client. The same goes for advocacy of any other ideal or value, including of course those referred to in the “statement of principles” policy ― equality, diversity, and inclusion. A lawyer advocating for these things without actually believing in them is a hypocrite whom right-thinking members of society are entitled to condemn.

I’m not sure whether Professor Woolley actually disagrees with this view, in the abstract. Yet she thinks that it is inapplicable to the situation of the Ontario lawyers whom the Law Society wants “to promote equality, diversity and inclusion generally, and in [their] behaviour towards colleagues, employees, clients and the public”. That’s because “the Statement of Principles is not about lawyers doing things on their own behalf, but rather on the profession’s.” In effect, by requiring us to produce this statement, the Law Society has enlisted us all as advocates for its own views, so that the norms of advocacy, of client-representation, apply.

Now, I do not think that the Law Society itself understands its policy in this way. When the “statement of principles” was first introduced, the Law Society explained that “[t]he intention” behind it “is to demonstrate a personal valuing of equality, diversity, and inclusion” (emphasis mine). Subsequently, it backtracked on this and claimed that requiring lawyers to “promote equality, diversity, and inclusion” “does not create any obligation to profess any belief or to seek to persuade anyone about anything”. If the former view of the “statement of principles” ― contradicted but never withdrawn from the Law Society’s website ― still holds, then, contrary to what Professor Wolley says, it is very much “about lawyers doing things on their own behalf”, albeit at the regulator’s behest. If the subsequent view is correct ― though I find it implausible, and the Law Society itself refused to make it the basis of a settlement of the challenge to the “statement of principles” brought by Ryan Alford and the Canadian Constitution Foundation ―, then lawyers are not asked to be advocates either on their own behalf or on the Law Society’s.

But suppose that the Law Society is, in fact, seeking to enlist the lawyers subject to its regulatory power as advocates for its own views, as Professor Woolley thinks. This would be a startling proposition. Unlike in any other case of representation, lawyers do not consent to this “retainer”. Unlike with any other client, they are not given a choice to decline representation if they find the client or the cause unacceptable, or simply beyond their availability or ability. Nor are they permitted to withdraw. They are, in a word, conscripted, coerced to act for the Law Society on pain, for most of them, of losing their livelihood. All the arguments against conscription, both deontological (it is simply wrong for one person to use other persons for his or her own purposes in this way) and consequentialist (conscripts are unlikely to provide good service), apply.

And why exactly is this conscription necessary? The Law Society is sufficiently well-heeled, what with charging over $1200 a year to members like me who are not even practising law, and double that to those who are, not to need pro bono representation. Lawyers are not even required to provide free representation to those who desperately need and, thanks in part to the Law Society’s cartelization of the legal services market, cannot afford it. Why is it entitled to something those in more need lack? Why does it need thousands upon thousands of (free) lawyers ― more than any client in the history of the universe ever had?

Moreover, there appears to be no limiting principle to the idea that the Law Society is entitled to conscript lawyers to represent it. If it can force us to advance its views and objectives with respect to “equality, diversity, and inclusion”, why not on other issues? If the Law Society comes to the view ― perhaps a not unreasonable view ― that its interests would be better served by the government of Ontario being formed by a given political party, can it mandate lawyers “promote” this party’s electoral fortunes? Can the Law Society, instead of hiring consenting lawyers ― and, presumably, paying them ― to defend its policies against Professor Alford and the CCF simply command some to work for it nolens volens? This would, to repeat, be a startling view ― and, to repeat also and give the devil its due, the Law Society itself does not take a position that commits it to advancing it ― but it seems to follow from Professor Woolley’s argument that there us “no regulatory impropriety in requiring” lawyers to advance particular views and values “to pursue the profession’s objectives”.

Professor Woolley is right that whether a lawyer’s heart is in his or her work for a client, or merely his or her brain and sitzfleisch, is irrelevant. But this is not true of the lawyer’s expression of his or her own views, where a lawyer is no more permitted to be hypocritical than any other person. Opposition to the Law Society’s “statement of principles” requirement proceeds in part from a sense that accepting it would require commitment to “equality, diversity, and inclusion” regardless of whether one adheres to these values (and arguably, more specifically, to how they are understood by the Law Society) ― and therefore, in many cases, hypocrisy. Professor Woolley claims that this is not so, because the requirement has nothing to do with personal belief, and is in effect a forced retainer of every licensed legal practitioner by the Law Society. Yet the Law Society does not think so. A power to conscript its members in this fashion would be an extraordinary one, and is quite unjustified in a free society. I see no reason to believe that it exists. Professor Woolley’s zeal in defending the Law Society is misplaced.

Profession of Power

A critique of Bob Tarantino’s celebration of the legal profession

In a new post over at his blog, bad platitude, Bob Tarantino continues his defence of the Law Society of Upper Canada’s right to exact ideological conformity from its members. His focus is on Jonathan Kay’s National Post op-ed that tied the Law Society’s demands to a belief  in the “myth that lawyers comprise a moral vanguard within society, with sacred duties that extend beyond the daily humdrum of litigating divorces and drafting contracts”. Mr. Tarantino concedes that Mr. Kay “correctly diagnoses … the profession’s seemingly inherent vainglory” ― and proceeds to defend thinking of law as a profession, not “‘just’ an occupation” in a way that demonstrates just how vainglorious this profession can be.

Before getting to the point, I pause to note Mr. Tarantino’s rather remarkable appeal to the forces of the market in an implicit attempt to justify the Law Society’s right to force lawyers to come up with, or at least copy-and-paste, “Statements of Principle” acknowledging a purported obligation to promote equality and diversity. Contra Mr. Kay, Mr. Tarantino observes that some clients ― he mentions Facebook ― want lawyers to take these things seriously. Mr. Tarantino also insists that he has “the right to decide not to spend [his] money at businesses that espouse views [he] find[s] unpalatable, and even to enthusiastically encourage others to avoid spending their money there”. Very well ― though at least some human rights statutes (including those of Quebec and New Zealand) include political opinion among the list of prohibited grounds of discrimination, which suggests that even enlightened individuals like Mr. Tarantino might disagree with some instances or applications of such legislation. But how exactly does Mr. Tarantino justify the coercion of lawyers whose clients are not as enlightened as he or Facebook, or indeed those lawyers who do not have any clients? At best, this is not a free-market argument, but a paternalistic one. The Law Society knows better.

On now to Mr. Tarantino’s main argument, which is that “it is precisely in law’s status as a profession and as a locus of power in society that the importance of collective value-setting arises”.  A profession, says Mr. Tarantino, is distinguished by involving the application of “a body of specialized knowledge and subordination of the practitioner’s interests in favour of three ‘others’: the client, the profession, and the public”. Lawyers, even more than the members of other professions, wield power over “our society and over the affairs of their clients, and if they adopted a self-interested ethic, a sort of syndicalism, they could quickly become a manifest danger to the rest of society”. For this reason, it is essential to make lawyers “virtuous” ― “so that their power is channeled in favour of others”. This is what both the Law Society’s latest demands and the oath lawyers are required to swear upon entering the profession (to which these demands bear a close resemblance, as I have noted here) are supposed to accomplish. Mr. Tarantino adds that it is very important that these exercises in “collective identity-formation” are “voluntary”; that they “do not find their origins in the government [but] arise from lawyers themselves.” He sees the legal profession as “in some ways just a big club … that gets to set its own rules about membership”, and there is nothing “illegitimate” about that, is there?

It is as if the last 250 years of history and political thought had not happened. As if it were possible to believe, after Smith and Madison ― not to mention Robespierre ― that public good is achieved by virtuous agents rather than by competition and ambition counteracting ambition. As if it were possible to claim, regardless of Constant and Berlin, that rules that a majority imposes on a minority not really an imposition and an interference with liberty. As if it were possible to maintain, despite Friedman and public choice theory, that a state-backed monopoly is not self-interested and syndicalist, working to exclude competition and raise prices for its services. Or, if Mr. Tarantino does not actually believe that such things are generally true, he must then suppose that lawyers, of all, people, are uniquely immune to the fallibility of other human beings. This is the sort of presumption, as self-serving as it is vainglorious, that Mr. Kay rightly decried.

Moreover, Mr. Tarantino’s argument involves a rhetorical sleight of hand. The lawyers’ power, of which he makes so much, is mostly not collective, as he suggests, but individual. It is not the legal profession acting as a united whole that drafts statutes, prosecutes alleged criminals, adjudicates disputes in administrative tribunals, or handles the personal and financial affairs of vulnerable clients. It is individual lawyers or, at most, firms. In any litigation, there are two sides ― normally, though admittedly not always, each with its own lawyer. When lawyers draft or apply rules that bind citizens, other lawyers are ready to challenge these rules or their application. If a lawyer mishandles a client’s case, another can be retained ― including to sue the first. (This is not to make light of the possibility and cost of mistakes or incompetence, of course. Still, the point is that a mistaken or even incompetent lawyer does not represent the profession as a whole.) The one circumstance when lawyers do act collectively is when they act through the Law Society. When the Law Society exacts compliance with its demands, that is the profession exercising power ― backed up by the armed force of the state. That is where we really ought to worry about power being exercised unethically. And in my view ― though perhaps not in Mr. Tarantino’s ― the exercise of power to impose ideological conformity on those subject to it is unethical and indeed oppressive.

Unlike many other defenders of the Law Society, Mr. Tarantino has the merit of not trying to minimize the seriousness of what is going on. His first post contained a forthright admission that the Law Society’s demands amount to a values test for membership in the legal profession. His latest doubles down on this admission, and makes clear that it the Law Society’s actions rest on a conception of public power that is paternalistic, confident both of its own moral superiority and of its ability to make others virtuous, and takes no notice of disagreement or dissent. Those who do not like how this power is exercised can simply get out and leave the legal profession ― and find some other way of making a living. Many of those who support the Law Society seem to be surprised by the force of the opposition which its latest demands have provoked. Perhaps, thanks to Mr. Tarantino’s posts, they can understand better.

One’s Own Self, Like Water

The Law Society’s demand for a “Statement of Principles” is a totalitarian values test

In my last post, I outlined the scope of the Law Society of Upper Canada’s demands that all lawyers subject to its regulation, including those who are retired or working outside Ontario, produce a “Statement of Principles that acknowledges” a purported “obligation to promote equality, diversity and inclusion” ― not only in the practice of law but “generally”. I also explained that no such obligation exists at present, because none is imposed by the Rules of Professional Conduct or other rules applicable to lawyers, as they now stand, and that it is doubtful whether the Law Society could lawfully impose such an obligation under its enabling statute.

I have not seen meaningful responses to these concerns. On the contrary, they have been echoed in an op-ed in the Globe and Mail by Arthur Cockfield. Instead, those who defend the Law Society argue that whatever limitation of our rights the Law Society’s demands produce, the limitation is justified if analysed under the proportionality framework of s 1 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. They also point to the fact that lawyers are already required, by s 21(1) of Law’s Society’s By-Law 4, to swear an oath upon entry into the profession.

I agree with the Law Society’s defenders that the “Statement of Principles” that it wants us to produce is indeed similar to an oath, and in particular to the oath required by s 21(1), which I will refer to as “the lawyers’ oath”. They are similar in nature, in purpose ― and in their uselessness and questionable constitutionality. I will discuss these points below, drawing heavily on the criticisms of the Canadian citizenship oath (and, specifically, of its reference to the Queen) that I have developed over the course of four years of blogging on this topic, and especially in an article on this issue published in the National Journal of Constitutional Law. (Indeed, though it was not the focus of my argument, I briefly discussed the lawyers’ oath in the article.) Some of those who defend the Law Society have sought to accuse its critics of hypocrisy over our purported failure to object to oaths, and especially to oaths of allegiance to the Queen. Whatever the rhetorical value of such accusations ― and I think that it is nil, since they do not refute our substantive objections ― this topic is not new to me.

Start, then, with the nature of the oath or “Statement of Principles”. Both are forced expressions of commitment to acting in certain ways. Though a “Statement of Principles” might, depending on the way in which it is formulated, ostensibly stop just short of being a promise, I think that any distinction between acknowledging an obligation and promising to fulfill an obligation is one without a difference in this context. In his National Post op-ed criticizing the Law Society’s demands, Bruce Pardy treated the “Statement of Principles” as a forced expression of support of support for the Law Society’s policies, which I think is quite right. As Prof. Pardy pointed out, in National Bank of Canada v Retail Clerks’ International Union, [1984] 1 SCR 269, the Supreme Court has condemned such demands as “totalitarian and as such alien to the tradition of free nations like Canada”. (296) Although in Slaight Communications Inc v Davidson, [1989] 1 SCR 1038 the Court made it clear that this holding did not apply to compelled statements of fact, this (wrongheaded, in my view) narrowing of the National Bank holding is not relevant here. But, as I have argued in my blog posts and article, coerced commitments are more than expressions of opinion. They are impositions not only on the freedom of speech of those who must make them, but also on their freedom of conscience. Oaths, as the Supreme Court explained in R v Khan, [1990] 2 SCR 531 work by “getting a hold on [the] conscience” of those who take them, notably ― but not only, as I shall presently explain ― by making the thing sworn to a matter of moral, and not merely legal, obligation. The  “Statement of Principles” is similar, in that it is an attempt to make every lawyer embrace, as a matter of his or her personal morality, and thus conscience, the principles set out in that statement.

The other way in which oaths typically impinge on conscience, and also a point of similarity between the lawyers’ oath and the “Statement of Principles” is that, because they typically impose vague obligations that go well beyond the requirements of any positive law, they demand frequent if not constant exercise of moral judgment about the precise scope of the duties being sworn to. As I wrote in my article, the lawyers’ oath

requires lawyers, among other things, to “protect and defend the rights of interests” of their clients; to “conduct all cases faithfully”; not to “refuse causes of complaint reasonably founded, nor [to] promote suits upon frivolous pretences”; to “seek to ensure access to justice”; and to “champion the rule of law and safeguard the rights and freedoms of all persons.” These (and the other requirements of the oath) are not straightforward obligations. Discharging them requires lawyers to think about just what their duties are. … [T]o a considerable degree, the judgment required is a moral one. In some cases, that is because the lawyers’ duties are couched in moral terms (like “faithfulness” …). In other cases, the degree to which one can and ought to fulfill these duties must necessarily be left to individual conscience. (How far must one go to “ensure access to justice”: does it require one to limit one’s fees? How much pro bono work need one do? Can one “ensure access to justice” while being a member of a state-enforced cartel devoted to raising the cost of legal services?) In other cases still, it is because the lawyers’ duties can conflict (for instance, when the defence of a client’s interests might suggest launching a “suit upon frivolous pretences”), requiring moral judgment about which is to prevail. In short, a lawyer must constantly, or at least frequently, rely on his or her conscience to determine just what it is that his or her oath requires. (152)

The “Statement of Principles” would be meant to do the same thing, requiring lawyers (those, at least, who take it seriously) to be constantly asking themselves what their general “obligation to promote equality, diversity and inclusion” requires. It is no answer that the requirement is merely to comply with relevant human rights legislation. Not only is no “Statement of Principles” necessary to achieve that, but this legislation does not actually apply to many lawyers, such as those who are retired and not engaged in the sorts of relationships or activities which such legislation covers. The whole point of a “Statement of Principles” is to go beyond the positive law.

These impositions on freedom of conscience ― and, of course, the compelled expression  of opinion that the lawyers’ oath and “Statement of Principles” also are ― require justification. I do not think that any exists. In my article, I take the Canadian citizenship oath through the Oakes proportionality analysis, and find that it fails at every step. (Interestingly, as I also note in the article, the Law Society itself dropped the mandatory oath to the Queen due to constitutional concerns.) Of course, the issues with the lawyers’ oath and the “Statement of Principles” are not the exactly same. Yet there are also some common points.

In particular, both supposedly serve the sort of “[v]ague and symbolic objectives” of which the Supreme Court told us to be wary in Sauvé v. Canada (Chief Electoral Officer), 2002 SCC 68, [2002] 3 SCR 519 while having a tenuous relationship to these objectives. The lawyers’ oath is unlikely to make many lawyers more ethical, or more committed to the Rule of Law. One is ethical, or a “champion of the Rule of Law”, because one believes in these things ― not because one was made to swear to them. Similarly, even the Law Society’s defenders tend to acknowledge that requiring us to produce a the Statement of Principles is not going to do much to make the legal profession more diverse or inclusive. A symbolic expression of commitment to a set of values, no matter how attractive, is no more necessary than a symbolic expression of commitment to one’s country, no matter how great ― which, I explain in the article on  the citizenship oath, and as Liav Orgad explained in more detail in his study of loyalty oaths, is to say not necessary at all.

This is all the more so since the Law Society explicitly states that the requirement to produce a “Statement of Principles” can be satisfied by the simple expedient of “adopting” one of the sample “Statements” supplied by the Law Society itself. Indeed, the Law Society’s defenders suggest that since we could easily “adopt” one of those sample statements, regardless of whether we believe in them, or some other “Statement” so vague and bland that, as Annamaria Enenajor put it to me on Twitter,  “a closet [sic] neo-nazi lawyer could get down with” it, the whole thing is really no big deal. This again is similar to the lawyers’ oath. I have no doubt that if Justice Abella chooses to re-join the bar after her retirement from the Supreme Court, she will feel no compunctions about promising to “champion the rule of law” ― even though it is a matter of public record that “[t]he ubiquitous phrase ‘rule of law’ annoys her“, and that she prefers something called “the rule of justice”. But to the extent that the Law Soceity’s fellow-travellers are right, it is difficult to see how the “Statement of Principles” is meaningfully addressing a pressing and substantial concern, and it must fail the proportionality test for that reason.

There is, however, another possibility. As with the citizenship oath and the lawyers’ oath, while most people may be content to make a pretended commitment to ideas or principles they do not understand or indeed secretly despise, some are not. They take a thing of that nature, whether called an oath or a Statement of Principles, seriously. They agree with Robert Bolt’s Thomas More that “[w]hen a man takes an oath … he’s holding his own self in his own hands. Like water. And if he opens his fingers then—he needn’t hope to find himself again”. And, just like More refused to falsely swear an oath to regard Henry VIII as head of the Church, they will not tick off box on the Law Society’s form to acknowledge an obligation to promote ideals the Law Societey’s interpretation of which  they do not share, or indeed the Law Society’s authority to impose which they reject. As to such people ― as to those who refuse to live in the closet ― the Law Society’s demand is not a trivial, if useless, imposition. As prof. Pardy argues, and as the Supreme Court has long accepted, forcing people to endorse opinions that they do not share is totalitarian ― or at any rate no less oppressive than the government of Henry VIII. As to such people, the Law Society’s demands will, at all events, fail the “proportionality strictu sensu” test, because totalitarian demands for ideological compliance always impose a greater cost than whatever benefit the state (or, in this case, the Law Society) can hope to obtain by imposing them.

Beyond the dry terminology of proportionality analysis, it is important to understand that what is at stake here is neither more nor less than a values test for the practice of law. While some have resisted this implication (going so far as to argue that a requirement to produce a “Statement of Principles” is not a values test even though a requirement to provide it to the Law Society would be one!), others among the Law Society’s fellow travellers are quite comfortable with it. In their view, there is nothing wrong with a legal profession in which only people who hold the right values ― and those who are sufficiently unprincipled to dissemble about theirs ― are welcome to remain, while those who are deemed to be wrong, and who refuse to hide in the closet in response, are shown the door. The undesirables are not yet pushed out ― it may be that the Law Society’s policy is nothing more than a paper tiger, a “demand” that will not be meaningfully enforced. But it could also be a warning, and a test. Even if the Law Society does not try coercion now, acquiescence to its demands it will embolden it do so in the future. As others have argued, it will also show that the legal profession is supine enough to comply with the authorities’ attempts to impose orthodoxy on it. And this leads me to a final question for those who support the Law Society. Are you really so confident of always being among those whose orthodoxy will be imposed on others? Thomas More ― the historical one, the one who confiscated books and rejoiced in the burning of heretics ― was so confident. May you fare better than he did.

Lawless Society of Upper Canada

The LSUC’s attempt to make lawyers “promote diversity and inclusion” is lawless and incompatible with a free society

The Law Society of Upper Canada (soon to be renamed something less historic), prepares to require its members ― of whom I am one ― to supply it with

individual Statement[s] of Principles that acknowledge[] [our] obligation to promote equality, diversity and inclusion generally, and in [our] behaviour towards colleagues, employees, clients and the public.

Bruce Pardy has written an excellent op-ed in the National Post to denounce this imposition as an essentially totalitarian attempt at thought control by the legal profession’s governing body. (He and Jared Brown also discussed the issue with Jordan Peterson; I am not fully on board with some of the things said in that conversation, but it is worth listening to.) While prof. Pardy’s op-ed makes the essential points, I will canvass a couple of further issues on this blog. In this post I will discuss the scope of the Law Society’s demand and what seems to me be the lack of legal justification behind it. I will have at least one other post to address the freedom of expression and freedom of conscience issues the demand raises, and probably another one about some broader concerns regarding the regulation of the legal profession.

The first point I want to make here is that it is important to be clear about just how far the purported obligation that the Law Society wants us to acknowledge extends. (I say “purported” because, as I shall presently explain, the obligation is, for the moment, a fictional one.) It is not merely a requirement that we act consistently with the values of equality, diversity, and inclusion insofar as they are embodied in legislation in force for the time being. No “statement of principles” would be necessary to accomplish that. The idea is to make us go beyond what the law actually requires. Yet in a free society people cannot be forced to do things that the law does not require, still less to hold or uphold beliefs.

People in free societies disagree ― including about the value and, even more so, about the scope and implication, of things like equality and inclusion. (Just compare human rights legislation in different jurisdictions. The differences between these laws are testimony to disagreements that can arise even among those who accept the general principle of such laws.) These disagreements are resolved for the time being by the enactment of legislation, and it is antithetical to the Rule of Law to demand that people who might not share the values, or the version of the values, that underpin the legislation in force for the time being act on those values beyond what the legislation actually requires.

Worse yet, the purported obligation is said to exist not only in the course of our practice of law (and any “behaviour towards colleagues, employees, clients and the public” that we engage in qua lawyers), but also “generally”. The fact that, as the Law Society’s “FAQ” repeatedly state, the obligation is said to fall not only on those engaged in legal practice but on all licensed lawyers, including, for instance, those who are retired, reinforces the natural reading of the obligation as covering aspects of our lives that go beyond the practice (and business) of law ― perhaps our every waking moment. This, once again, is utterly at odds with the idea that the demands that a free society makes on its members are limited, and typically do not extend into a certain private sphere, except of course to restrain actions that would actually violate the rights of others.

In concrete terms, I take it that, according to the Law Society, I have a duty to devote my scholarship to the promotion of equality, diversity, and inclusion. Certainly any topics or argument deemed, by the Law Society, to be antithetical to these ideas, would be verboten. Perhaps I must devote my personal life, and not only my professional activity, to the promotion of the Law Society’s preferred ideals. There is, after all, no natural limit to the generality of the word “generally”. Will the Law Society police my Twitter and Facebook accounts to see if they are sufficiently egalitarian, diverse, and inclusive?

The second point I want to make here is that it is not clear what the source of the Ontario lawyers’ purported “obligation to promote equality, diversity, and inclusion” even is. So far as I can tell, neither the By-Laws of the Law Society nor the Rules of Professional Conduct impose one. The closest they come to doing so is in commentary to Rule 2.1-1, which provides that “[a] lawyer has a duty to carry on the practice of law and discharge all responsibilities to clients, tribunals, the public and other members of the profession honourably and with integrity”. The commentary states that

[a] lawyer has special responsibilities by virtue of the privileges afforded the legal profession and the important role it plays in a free and democratic society and in the administration of justice, including a special responsibility to recognize the diversity of the Ontario community, to protect the dignity of individuals, and to respect human rights laws in force in Ontario.

Of course, the Commentary is not the Rule. But, in any case, “recognizing diversity”, “protecting human dignity”, and respecting the law ― all in the course of practice of law ― are much lesser obligations than promoting diversity and inclusion, and not only in one’s practice but generally.

Now, the “five strategies to break down barriers faced by racialized lawyers and paralegals” adopted by the Law Society from one of which the demand for a “Statement of Principles” derives, also say that

The Law Society will review and amend, where appropriate, the Rules of Professional Conduct … and Commentaries to reinforce the professional obligations of all licensees to recognize, acknowledge and promote principles of equality, diversity and inclusion consistent with the requirements under human rights legislation and the special responsibilities of licensees in the legal … profession[].

But even if the Law Society “will review and amend” the relevant rules, it does not seem to have done so yet. Thus, quite apart from any substantive issues with the Law Society’s demands, the fact is that the governing body of Ontario’s legal profession is demanding that lawyers “acknowledge” obligations that do not yet exist in law. Since the Law Society is now considering its rebranding options, may I suggest the Franz Kafka Appreciation Society?

But there is more. Even if, or when, the Law Society wants to amend its Rules of Professional Conduct to actually impose an generalized obligation to “promote principles of equality, diversity and inclusion”, it is not clear that will have the authority to do so. The Law Society Act, as it now stands, provides that

[i]t is a function of the Society to ensure that all persons who practise law in Ontario or provide legal services in Ontario meet standards of learning, professional competence and professional conduct that are appropriate for the legal services they provide. (Section 4.1(a))

It adds that

[s]tandards of learning, professional competence and professional conduct for licensees and restrictions on who may provide particular legal services should be proportionate to the significance of the regulatory objectives sought to be realized. (Section 4.2.5)

It is not clear to me that the imposition of an obligation to promote certain values, be they ever so laudable, and especially of an obligation that extends beyond the practice of law or the provision of legal services are within the Law Society’s lawful powers under this legislation. The standards of professional conduct that the Law Society is authorized to impose have to be “appropriate” for the provision of legal services (and “should be proportionate” to the objective of regulating the provision of legal services). Admittedly, “appropriate” is a capacious word, and the deferential approach of Canadian courts to reviewing administrative decision-making means that it might take a lot of persuasion to get a court to hold that policing a lawyer’s beliefs and actions unrelated to the actual practice of law is not an “appropriate” way of regulating the provision of legal services. Still, I for one have a hard time seeing how it is appropriate for a professional regulatory body to transform itself into a committee for the promotion of virtue and the prevention of vice and, should it eventually come to litigation, it might be worth trying to raise this argument, in addition to those based on the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which I will discuss in the next post.

In any case, quite apart from what the courts may or may not do, the Law Society, if anyone, shouldn’t be trying to strain the limits of its statutory powers. The Law Society Act provides that it “has a duty to maintain and advance … the rule of law” (s 4.2.1), which among other things requires public authorities to act within their lawful powers ― not to test their boundaries. The Rule of Law also prevents public authorities from imposing on those subject to their coercive powers obligations that do not exist in law. On many views, at least, the point of these strictures is to preserve a sphere of autonomy within which individuals can act without being supervised or hassled by the authorities. The Law Society’s attempt to make those subject to its regulations into the torchbearers for its favoured values is at odds with these commitments, which one would hope most lawyers would adhere to even apart from their statutory recognition. One can only hope that the profession will resist its regulators, who have sacrificed their longstanding principles in a quest to make everyone embrace newer and supposedly more progressive ones.

UPDATE: Annamaria Enenajor insists that I was wrong to claim that the Law Society is  demanding that we “supply it” with copies of the “Statement of Principles” that it wants us to produce. I take the point that the Law Society’s explanation does not actually say that we must supply it with our statements. I find the idea that we merely need to tell the Law Society that we have created the statements it demands, without proving that this is so, more than a little odd, which is why it hadn’t occurred to me originally, but it could well be correct. That said, I do not think that whether or not the Law Society wants to see our statements changes anything to the analysis.

Commitment Issues

The Supreme Court has released its judgment in Canada (Attorney General) v. Federation of Law Societies of Canada, 2015 SCC 7, holding that some of the obligations which federal legislation intended to combat money-laundering and the financing of terrorism cannot be constitutionally applied to lawyers. It thus (largely) confirmed the decision of the British Columbia Court of Appeal in  Federation of Law Societies of Canada v. Canada (Attorney General), 2013 BCCA 147 ― but not its reasoning, which had elevated the “independence of the bar” to the status of a principle of fundamental justice protected by s. 7 of the Charter. Having denounced that reasoning as “disturbing,” I am happy to see the Supreme Court reject it, although even its narrower decision is open to some criticism.

The Federation of Law Societies challenged two sets of provisions. One allowed for warrantless searches of lawyers’ offices in the pursuit of information related to money laundering and terrorism financing, with limited protections for solicitor client privilege. The other imposed substantial identity-verification and record-keeping requirements on legal professionals. Neither, the Supreme Court found, could stand up to constitutional scrutiny.

The search provisions, it unanimously found, were in breach of s. 8 of the Charter, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures. In Justice Cromwell’s words, the law “authorizes sweeping law office searches which inherently risk breaching solicitor-client privilege,” [35] contrary to the requirements set out in a case decided a dozen years ago, Lavallee, Rackel & Heintz v. Canada (Attorney General), [2002] 3 S.C.R. 209, 2002 SCC 61. In particular, there was no notice to the client whose potentially privileged communications with his or her lawyer the government could seek to seize; no opportunity for the client (as opposed to the lawyer), or some independent entity to assert privilege; and no opportunity for a judge to refuse the communication of privileged documents in the absence of a challenge to the communication. Furthermore, the legislation failed to provide that “before searching a law office, the authorities must satisfy a judicial officer that there exists no other reasonable alternative to the search.” [54] These defects made the search provisions unreasonable, and thus contrary to s. 8. Nor could it be justified under s. 1 of the Charter, as the Court had set out some less impairing alternatives in Lavallee ― which Parliament failed to enact.

As for the identification and record-keeping provisions, the Court was also unanimous in finding that they infringed s. 7 of the Charter. All judges agreed that as failure to comply with these provisions exposed lawyers to imprisonment, their right to liberty was obviously engaged. However, they disagreed about the nature of the principle of fundamental justice with which these provisions did not comport.

Importantly, the majority (with which the concurrence does not disagree on this point) does not accept the “independence of the bar” as a principle of fundamental justice. This principle, championed by the Federation of Law Societies and accepted by the Court of Appeal, is capable of very broad application. The federal government argued “that the Court of Appeal’s broad definition of the independence of the bar essentially places lawyers above the law,” [78] a position in which the majority found “considerable merit” [80] although it concluded that it did not need to formally decide the matter. The majority added that although

self-regulation is certainly the means by which legislatures have chosen in this country to protect the independence of the bar … [it did] not have to decide here whether that legislative choice is in any respect constitutionally required. [86]

Rather, for the majority, the principle involved was “that the state cannot impose duties on lawyers that undermine their duty of commitment to their clients’ causes.” [84] The lawyers’ duty of commitment is, in its view, already a crucial part of the administration of justice in Canada, as part of a broader duty of loyalty, and universally recognized as such. Furthermore, although “this standard is far from self-applying, it has proven to be sufficiently precise to enable the courts to apply it in widely divergent fact situations.” [92] The state, therefore,

cannot impose duties on lawyers that undermine the lawyer’s compliance with that duty, either in fact or in the perception of a reasonable person, fully apprised of all of the relevant circumstances and having thought the matter through. The paradigm case of such interference would be state-imposed duties on lawyers that conflict with or otherwise undermine compliance with the lawyer’s duty of commitment to serving the client’s legitimate interests. [103]

The majority concluded that the impugned legislation did not comply with the principle of fundamental justice it articulated. The legal profession’s self-regulatory bodies have developed standards as to the information that lawyers ought to collect from clients, but the legislation required lawyers to collect much more information than (they thought) necessary in order to ensure ethical and effective representation ― and, potentially, turn it over to the state in breach of solicitor-client privilege. While

[p]rofessional ethical standards … cannot dictate to Parliament what the public interest requires or set the constitutional parameters for legislation[, they] do provide evidence of a strong consensus in the profession as to what ethical practice in relation to these issues requires. [108]

A departure from these standards would create the impression, both in the minds of (reasonable) lawyers and their (reasonable) clients, of a potential conflict with the lawyers’ duty of commitment.

The concurrence (the Chief Justice and Justice Moldaver) thought that respect for that duty is too vague a requirement to amount to a principle of fundamental justice. Because the nature of a lawyer’s duty to his or her client depends on “the nature of the retainer … as well as … other circumstances … [i]t does not … provide a workable constitutional standard.” [119] Instead, the concurrence would have considered the respect of solicitor-client privilege as the principle of fundamental justice involved.

Some of the initial reactions I have seen were also critical of the majority opinion’s recognition of the duty of commitment as new principle of fundamental justice. For my part, I think that Justice Cromwell provides a pretty compelling argument in its defence. That a lawyer ought to be, and appear to be, committed to his or her clients’ interests and to no others’ is surely a well established principle in our legal system, and at least arguably a fundamental one. It would indeed be troubling if the state were able easily to interfere with that duty.

What I find more troubling is the majority’s application of the principle it identifies. Mostly, that’s because, although Justice Cromwell says that standards adopted by professional self-regulatory bodies “cannot … set constitutional” requirements, they seem to have exactly that effect in his reasons. If a requirement that lawyers depart from professional standards is inherently constitutionally suspicious, then I fail to see how the professional standards are not becoming, ipso facto, constitutional ones. And I don’t think that it is right that ethical standards developed by professional regulatory organizations can, by virtue simply of existing, acquire such a status.

I am greatly relieved, however, the the court all-but-rejected enshrining a (potentially) expansive view of the independence of the bar as a constitutional principle. As important as it is for lawyers to have the freedom to zealously represent unpopular clients, including against the government, it is at least not obvious that the cartelization of legal services and consequent impediments to access to justice, in which the self-regulation of the legal profession results, is necessary for this pubic good to be achieved. It is very good news indeed that the Supreme Court has not committed us to that regulatory approach.