Touchstones 30th Anniversary - Ep.1: The Bertha Wilson Task Force

The Every Lawyer

On the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the release of the CBA report, Touchstones for Change, Equality, Diversity and Accountability, we listen in on a kitchen table discussion between 3 of the original task force members, Daphne Dumont, Patricia Blocksom, and Sophie Bourque, and the lead author of the report, Melina Buckley. We get the historical context, where the original authors were, and what the world was like thirty years ago when they began their work on the Touchstones Report, or as they would phrase it, when they joined the Task Force. We learn of the enormity of their undertaking, and the significance of the phrase task force, i.e. the need for clear goals and collective, sustained, effort. We hear about how the Touchstones Report was initially received by the legal profession, a notoriously tough audience to be sure, and how the CBA led the way by very publicly implementing the report’s recommendations. We also learn a lot about the continued history of feminism, the difference between tokenism and real change, and that there is still a long way to go.

Implementation. Led by Bertha Wilson, the Touchstones task force knew that the writing of the report including the research and recommendations was only the beginning. To engineer real societal change, what would happen as a result of the task force’s findings would be essential, as would the CBA. The real story of the Touchstones Report is about the self-reflection and willingness to embrace change on the part of the members the legal profession in the face of, well, the evidence. The CBA not only advocated for change, but it also actually changed itself and continues to do so. We feel that it is fair to say that the Touchstones Report changed the way the legal profession looks at equality and helped us to understand the need for diversity, equity, and inclusion within the profession and how the profession can, does, and should, provide leadership on exactly these areas of human co-existence.

“It is a wise man who said that there is no greater inequality than the equal treatment of unequals.”

-Frankfurter J., quoted by Bertha Wilson in her Introduction from the Chair, CBA Touchstones for Change.

touchstonesForChange.pdf (cba.org)