Touchstones 30th Anniversary - Ep.2: Speaking Truth to Power

The Every Lawyer

To quote Patricia Blocksom: “Equality is a robust concept but a fragile reality.” Fortunately lawyers are good at remaining constantly vigilant and feminism is nothing to be afraid of, quite the opposite: by the end of this our second episode on the Touchstones Report, you will be very grateful you have chosen to let these wonderful women, these wonderful feminists, into your life for a while. Thanks for listening, reach out to us anytime at [e-mail]!

Touchstones Report Executive Summary:

The CBA’s Task Force on Gender Equality’s groundbreaking 1993 Report titled “Touchstones for Change: Equality, Diversity, and Accountability” addresses a range of issues related to equality and discrimination in the legal profession. It focuses on barriers to entry into the profession, including law school admission policies, access to articling positions, and the articling experience. The Report also highlights the unique challenges faced by women in the legal profession, such as employment opportunities, career advancement, and the lack of accommodation for family responsibilities.

Additionally, the Report explores the dynamics within private practice, government legal departments, and corporate legal departments, including issues of employment equality, career opportunities, and instances of sexual harassment. Further, the Report delves into the challenges faced by faculties of law and administrative tribunals, examining issues such as representation, career advancement, balancing career and family responsibilities, and sexual harassment. It also addresses the judiciary and the need for a fair and diverse appointment process, judicial education, and tackling discrimination within the judiciary.

The practice of family law is discussed in detail, highlighting issues related to representation, career advancement, funding for legal aid, and challenges with the substantive law.

The Report also emphasizes the role of Law Societies and the CBA in promoting equality within the legal profession. It explores the need for non-discrimination, monitoring, disclosure requirements, alternative discipline processes, and the importance of implementing the Task Force’s recommendations. Finally, it touches upon the need for gender equality in substantive law and procedure, examining areas such as family law, intellectual property law, criminal justice, and pensions and benefits.

Overall, the Touchstones for Change Report provides a comprehensive overview of the challenges and areas requiring improvement in achieving equality and addressing discrimination within the legal profession in Canada. Reviewing the Summary below, one will see that many of these recommendations have been achieved; however, there is still much to be done to make them all a reality.

Summary of Recommendations

Chapter Two addresses barriers to entry into the legal profession and recommends a range of measures, including consultation mechanisms between law schools and law societies, outreach programs to promote diversity in the profession, education equity initiatives, affirmative action recruitment in law schools, admissions policy improvements, support for part-time studies, child care services on campus, increased funding for scholarships, gender-inclusive language and sensitivity in classrooms, curriculum reforms, potential Indigenous law school, appointment of Equity Officers and establishment of safe spaces in law schools, combating harassment and bias, and inclusion of gender-related courses in the Bar Admission program.

Chapter Five addresses issues within law firm and recommends adopting interview guidelines, implementing employment equity programs, monitoring hiring processes, tracking internal referrals to detect systemic discrimination, supporting female lawyers facing client discrimination, banning sexist activities in client promotion, reviewing promotion practices, establishing mentoring programs for women lawyers, evaluating partnership decision-making processes to eliminate bias, reporting demographic information and retention rates to law societies, establishing parental leave policies, offering child care support, implementing policies to address sexual harassment, promoting workplace equity, conducting educational initiatives and collaborating with relevant organizations to implement and finance these initiatives.

In Chapter Six, the Task Force presents recommendations to address gender equality issues within Government Legal Departments, including ensuring fair allocation of work and gender balance on committees, ensuring representation of minority women in the public service and gender equality in management and promotion processes, endorsing membership in professional associations, reviewing recruitment procedures, providing mechanisms for reviewing discretionary decisions related to family responsibilities, accommodating family responsibilities without hindering career advancement, providing anti-discrimination training, establishing advisory committees on gender issues and equal opportunities, and referring legal work to law firms with inclusive employment equity programs.

Chapter Seven of the Report recommends that corporate legal departments actively promote employment equity by hiring women from minority groups, referring legal work to law firms with strong employment equity programs that include representation of all women, establishing a Subcommittee on Gender Issues within the Canadian Corporate Counsel Association (CCCA) to develop strategies and monitor progress, and utilizing the CCCA as a resource for corporate policies on parental leave, flexible work arrangements, and programs addressing sexual harassment.

Chapter Eight suggests that law schools should prioritize recruiting faculty members from minority groups, regularly review recruitment practices for gender parity and minority representation, ensure affirmative action recruits are recognized as fully qualified, promote women's representation in committees and leadership roles, adopt workplace equity policies, consider women and minority faculty for dean appointments, eliminate gender-based salary differences, address salary inequities, provide reduced teaching loads and sabbaticals, and develop materials and seminars to address gender and minority challenges in teaching, with the Canadian Council of Law Deans playing a supportive role.

Chapter Nine advises governments to actively recruit women and under-represented groups for administrative tribunal positions, establish a re-appointment protocol without term limits, consider tribunal lawyers for other government and senior civil service roles, view tribunal experience as valuable for judicial appointments, review adjudicators' salary levels for potential discrimination, and encourage administrative tribunals to implement flexibility policies and suspend appointments during maternity and parental leave.

Chapter Ten proposes that the CBA create objective criteria for judicial appointments and establish committees for their development, and advocate for an affirmative action policy to appoint women and minority women, while also addressing discrimination in the appointments process; it recommends mandatory sensitivity courses for judges, fair workload allocation for women judges, and the creation of a Commission on Judicial Conduct with public hearings and equal representation of judges, lawyers, and the public.

In Chapter Eleven, the Task Force recommends increasing the emphasis on family law in legal education, improving its status within the legal profession, supporting family law practitioners, and ensuring sufficient funding and judicial resources for family law cases at both federal and provincial levels.

In Chapter Twelve, the Task Force recommends that law societies prioritize diversity and enforce non-discrimination rules. The Task Force also suggests establishing internal procedures within law firms to handle gender discrimination complaints and appointing "safe counsel" to investigate such complaints. Additionally, they propose monitoring the progress of women and minority groups within firms, ensuring compliance with human rights legislation, and developing educational initiatives to eliminate discrimination and promote equality. Law societies are also urged to gather statistics on the representation of minorities and conduct studies on racism in the profession.

In Chapter Thirteen of the Report, the Task Force recommends that the CBA amend its constitution and mission statement to address discrimination, conduct an inquiry into racism, promote accessibility and inclusion, gather statistics on underrepresented groups, establish committees, support lawyers with family responsibilities, advocate for gender equality, and adopt gender-inclusive language policies.

Lastly, the Task Force recommends in Chapter Fourteen that the CBA offer legal education programs on gender bias, develop a national strategy to eliminate gender bias in the justice system, advocate for access to justice measures for women, establish gender issues sub-committees, consult the National Equality Committee on law reform initiatives, and review submissions to address gender-related issues.

touchstonesForChange.pdf (cba.org)