https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/robing-room-our-own-anita-szigeti/

Today I had some extra time before a 4 pm meeting in the Court of Appeal. So I plunked myself down on one of the lovely sofas in the robing room for women, where I have spent countless hours in a 25 year career, before, during or after appearing (several hundred times) in our province’s highest Court. While I was lying about scrolling through my phone, a young lawyer came in to change. She unceremoniously changed out of her Court gowns and when she was done, we began a conversation about the burning issue of the day: the Law Society’s Response to an Online Petition to get rid of the safe haven in which she and I were about to have our very productive mentoring networking chat.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-law-society-court-house-unisex-change-room-men-women-1.5026980

Earlier in the day, I did something I had never ever done before, despite having changed into and out of my own robes hundreds of times in the “Ladies'” – I asked a man to take me through the “Gentlemen’s Robing Room.” I was expecting an embarrassment of riches. Imagine my surprise, when what I saw was a long line of 75 mahogany lockers, tall and stately, sure, but just a bunch of big ugly brown lockers with a little bench to tie your shoe in between each row. It didn’t smell all that fresh in there either, no offence guys. At the end of the long row of giant lockers, there is a sad looking off-white L shaped sofa that has certainly seen better days, and a desk with a couple of chairs also sort of up against a wall. The atmosphere is the opposite of welcoming. I cannot imagine anybody cutting any kind of a deal or mentoring anyone or for that matter wanting to stay in that space for a minute longer than they had to. THIS is what all the FUSS is about?!?! I asked. I took my tourguide to the Women’s and he agreed with me. Ours is BEAUTIFUL. SEE FOR YOURSELF!!

There are at least two separate areas where one could sit and chat – light fixtures that are quaint, calming probably Farrow and Ball paint on the wall, appropriate for the age of the building – nice touches that settle the mind before a stressful outing in the Court of Appeal.

I have been a member of the Ontario bar since 1992. I first started appearing in the Court of Appeal probably around 1997. I have been in the Court maybe on average once a month since and lately more often, almost every 2nd week. I have talked with women, young and old in that space. Today my young colleague and I agreed that the space is important to us. She is a 2016 call. 24 years my junior. Our thoughts on the online petition and the Law Society’s immediate response were essentially identical. We use this room, we want it and we need it. It must be SAVED!

Nothing personal, but literally the last thing I want to see 10 minutes before the bell rings to open Court is my male colleague opposite in his undergarments. I just don’t care for that, call me old fashioned. I suppose I could be wrong on this, but something tells me my male colleagues reciprocate this sentiment quite exactly. And if we are headed in that direction, why bother with robing rooms at all? Is there something preventing us all changing together in the Courtroom? Save time AND space that way.

To be clear, I support gender neutral robing rooms being created. If people want and need gender neutral spaces, we should make them, have them available and use them, whenever anyone wants to. I also agree that our 12 lockers are fewer than the 75 in the men’s. We don’t need 75 and neither do they. If we put in 3-6 more lockers in the Women’s, there would be no shortage on any given morning going forward. That’s the solution. To the locker space issue anyway.

As for the imagined exclusion, I do not see that is happening. If anyone actually saw the Men’s Robing Room at Osgoode, I think they’d understand that the chances of anything happening in there beyond tube socks being exchanged for dress socks and the like, are remote.

Women do need a space of our own. Some women do. This woman does. On appeal day, I want to be left alone to think and sort my arguments in my head. If I am talking to someone, it’s my junior lawyer or another colleague who is in the change room, OK, I am saying “good luck today” or similar. During down times like this afternoon, more in depth conversations are certainly possible and even likely. In our lovely, warm, quiet, safe space.

I have written to the Law Society to request an actual consultation on the issues being raised. They have very kindly assured me my request would be passed on to the correct destination and I would be kept in the loop. In the meantime, I am personally prepared to take people through the “Gentleman’s” vs the “Ladies” and I will also entertain submissions on why we are clamoring to get into the Old Boys’ Club there, such as it is. Because I do NOT get it.

I do not understand why the Law Society of Ontario has responded in the knee-jerk fashion it has to a problem that is largely imagined with a solution that is going to leave the actual users of those change rooms incredibly unhappy. I don’t want to argue my appeals after 10 minutes of cowering in a toilet stall trying to change in private. I pay a lot of fees to the LSO annually and I deserve to be heard on this. I also deserve to be able to change into my ‘uniform’ in a safe space for me.

But “Don’t Worry: Change is Coming”

Well, I am worried. Worried and disgruntled. We need a better solution than this. Consult!!!