As many of our members will no doubt already be aware, the Law Society of Upper Canada has put forth a new requirement for licensees to adopt a statement of principles acknowledging their obligation to promote equality, diversity and inclusion. This development has recently been met with a fair bit of backlash and a motion has been filed for LSUC’s December convocation requesting conscientious objectors be exempt from the requirement. Out of concern that LSUC’s initiatives to tackle the barriers faced by racialized licensees will be scaled back, CABL has written an open letter to the Treasurer and Benchers regarding this proposed motion.
CABL’s letter can be found here: Letter Advocacy Committee re. Statement of Principles dated November 3, 2017
As well, a legal opinion dated November 16, 2016, provided to the Law Society by Pinto Wray James can be found here: Letter A Pinto re. recommendations dated November 16, 2016
In addition to releasing its open letter, CABL would also like to encourage all of its members to try and attend LSUC’s December Convocation which is scheduled to take place on December 1, 2017. CABL believes it is important to have a significant showing of our membership at Convocation to ensure that our concerns are properly acknowledged and that LSUC understands the importance of this issue to Black lawyers and all racialized licensees alike.
