There has been much written about the 2023 LSO Bencher elections and I do really hesitate to weigh in. But, I have come to realize that I do know a lot about these elections and most lawyers would not have the experience I have had with them. When I began to talk about the issues, my commentary resonated with enough people, that I’ve chosen to revise those comments and make them available for public consumption – in case this does assist Ontario lawyers in voting.

My Own Experience – My Own Views

Because I’ve had direct involvement with Bencher elections in various capacities including in 2011 when I ran as a Toronto candidate, I now share my own personal thoughts here in case they are useful to anyone. I repeat, these are my own personal views – I am speaking for nobody other than myself here. Nothing I say here is an endorsement or indictment of any kind, despite expressing some of my own reflections including on a handful of individual candidate’s public statements, for example. I am not sharing who I am voting for or encouraging you to vote or not vote for anyone in particular. I am encouraging most of all doing your due diligence to make your own decisions in an informed way.

If you’re interested in my own Bencher candidate journey back in 2011, I had blogged about it here. In fact this WordPress Blog was created by my then campaign manager, currently my co-Editor, co-Author, co-Director and co-Teacher of courses and books on mental health law, Dr. Ruby Dhand for my Bencher run some 12 years ago!

Here are the blog posts about all that.

EVERY VOTE COUNTS

It is worth noting that voting is historically very low in terms of turn-out for these elections and they are won or lost by just a few votes, given several hundred votes alone will get you in especially outside Toronto. So every vote does really count in this election.

SLATES and COALITIONS — DO YOUR DUE DILIGENCE

As you likely also know there are two “slates” being endorsed as coalition groups by lots of organizations and individuals.

The Good Governance Coalition vs the FullStop slate.

I don’t comment on whether that’s a good idea or a bad idea or why / how these groups came to be formed – all of that is well above my pay grade of exactly nothing here.

What I will say is given my interest in who governs us, and my having paid close attention to just that over many years, I have committed to reviewing each candidate’s statement individually and completely.

They are available here:

If you care about this election, and it is an important one, I would encourage you to do the same. It takes a bit of time but not as long as you’d think.

In the process, you may discover candidates not running within either umbrella group who are stellar people you may wish to support.

INDEPENDENT CANDIDATES

For example, there is Mark Persaud. Mark Persaud was a homeless refugee to this country as a youth. He has had a remarkable career as a lawyer and lots of information about him is available online. I know Mark. His commitment to diversity, inclusion and equity in the profession has been nothing short of heroic. He is a huge ally to his women colleagues. Indeed, not having ever met me before then, based on my platform at the time committed to increasing legal aid funding, women and diversity in the profession, he went to great lengths to support my own candidacy – just based on the issues. It was a remarkable amount of support. It is not because of that, specifically, but because of who he is that I am a huge fan. I am really glad he is running. He is one example of an absolutely amazing independent candidate.

Caryma Sa’d is another. I have known Caryma well since she first ran for Bencher four years ago. I was impressed with her then, just based on her media appearances on the issues of importance to new calls, young racialized women and barriers to access to justice in our profession. Since then I have followed her career and journalistic efforts as a documentary film-maker, etc, which are all very publicly known, and I remain in her awe for her energy, enthusiasm and incredibly thoughtful reflections on things I can barely follow. Make no mistake, Caryma is a huge intellect. One of the very smartest young women and lawyers I know.

There are other independent candidates I note who impress me – quite a few.

For example there is a young man called Elliot P. Saccucci. I flag him as an example of someone I had never heard of, whose bio says he’s the head of his employment law firm’s SPORTS LAW department, something that I probably couldn’t possibly care less about overall, and yet his platform aligns very nicely with many of the things I very much do care about that I discovered only by reading his entire candidate statement – which focuses on Access to Justice, Support for “foreign-trained”, new, sole and small practitioners and reducing law school tuition, paid articles, programs to facilitate and encourage promotion of hiring of NCA candidates, among other things. Angela Ogang is another interesting candidate who deserves a closer look. She is herself a 5 year call and an NCA graduate, originally from Uganda, who is fully bilingual and focuses on the interests of immigrant, Black and women lawyers as well as internationally trained lawyers.

These are only a very few examples of some stellar candidates running and seeking your vote in this election. It is the furthest thing from an exhaustive list.

CRIMINAL DEFENCE LAWYERS, Women and the Treasurer

Women in Canadian Criminal Defence (WiCCD) is hosting the Treasurer and four women in criminal defence on Monday afternoon, April 3, 2023, and attendees will have the opportunity to ask questions of them then.

We are fortunate that we have young racialized women in criminal defence running in this election – four to be exact – an embarrassment of riches. You likely are well familiar with the good work of at least Caryma, running as an independent, and Neha Chugh and Annamaria Enanajor running with the Good Governance Coalition. Each has contributed significantly to the profession. I have no doubt that they would all apply themselves with great dedication to the huge time commitment of the work of a bencher. You may not know Sayeh Hassan (I did not) who is choosing to run with the FullStop slate, whom you’ll also meet on Monday. I listened to nearly an hour of her being interviewed on a podcast called Justice in Pieces (I commend the whole series to you – Neha was also interviewed on the same show – the host does a great job of drawing out important information from his guests.) I commend that program to you. Another criminal defence lawyer running is Gerald Chan. Most of you will know him (as I do) by reputation, if not personally. I am confident he would also take his bencher role super seriously and work very hard. On Monday we will also hear from Treasurer Horvat. Jacqueline Horvat works in Windsor in civil litigation. If you think about it, being elected Treasurer in this very divisive and combative Convocation environment must have been unbelievably challenging. I have found Treasurer Horvat very supportive of WiCCD and women in criminal defence, and interested in issues of import to women lawyers generally.

OLDER WHITE MEN

When you review all the candidate pages you will be struck by how many older white men are still running for Bencher, how many big firm and corporate / securities / class actions / bankruptcy etc litigators are still seeking election and how many of these people talk about their commitment to access to justice, legal aid, diversity, to racialized young women’s interests, to that of sole practitioners and mental health. While I have no doubt about the sincerity of these sentiments, one might question if some of these candidates have the necessary lived experience to contribute meaningfully on some of these particular issues. I don’t suggest that there’s no room any longer to include older white men in Convocation – not at all – each has, I am sure, relevant expertise in relation to some of the Law Society’s work. But, this demographic, and particularly Bay Street, has historically dominated Convocation to the exclusion of the voices of younger lawyers, those in small firms, women, racialized lawyers, etc. — members who are less than richly resourced personally and professionally, for whom monetary and regulatory burdens imposed by the Society hit differently.

Some of these candidates are seeking a third 4-year term as Bencher. I believe that it would be a strong show of their commitment to increasing representation by young racialized women in Convocation, for example, if they made space for those very voices they are seeking to champion, elevate, include and amplify, by choosing not to run instead. Just a thought.

MENTAL HEALTH and DRUG USE IN THE PROFESSION

My own view is that at times the LSO has had an abominable track record of addressing mental health issues in our profession. Candidates just saying “I care about mental health” is not only not enough, how they care about it makes a big difference and can do seriously more harm than good. I won’t get into specifics here. I will cite only one example and only in broad strokes. The LSO devised a Mental Health Strategy some years ago, which was riddled with problematic policies. LSO should solicit input and consult meaningfully with a group of peer advocates – a group of lawyers who themselves have or had serious mental health issues or histories of using substances. That group is an invaluable resource for our members, in my view, who should be included in policy decision making about how we address mental health issues in the profession. So when a candidate says “I care about mental health”, you’d want to know more about that is my point.

LSO FEES AND STAFFER SALARIES

Finally, one of the candidates indicates that law society staffer salaries alone cost our members $72 MILLION annually. [The entire LSO budget is over $100 million, apparently]

Math is really not my forte (any more anyway…) but: Divide that by 55 thousand lawyer members and you get a $1309 price tag to each of us to pay SALARIES of staff alone. That’s an astoundingly high number, I should think.

What has the LSO done for you lately? Apart from making it nearly impossible to obtain a photo ID card (don’t get me started) – I find I pay my fees and then hope not to receive a complaint.

Mind you, to be fair, this past year the LSO did something I personally supported to no end – it brought an injunction application to stop the destruction of 200+ year trees in the Osgoode grove. A lot of people complained about the cost associated with that litigation, but from my own perspective, it was an important expenditure. I guess this is one example of differing positions on spending that Convocation must take into account and difficult decisions like this must be made on the daily.

Still, every year historically the LSO is voted the best employer in the profession. I can well see why – staff salaries are high and the work is probably not crushing. I do think that fees are a real issue.

And another thing! We should have graduated fee scales depending on ability to pay, as a class. Why should new sole practitioners pay the same fees as Bay Street partners, decades into their career? Also: Why do Benchers have to work for free when staff are richly compensated? I don’t know – maybe Benchers now get paid – but historically it’s a volunteer contribution and it shouldn’t be as crushing as it is then. But even if the current model offers some remuneration, I think the sacrifice made by sole practitioners or small firm lawyers whose practice is primarily legal aid, young women with care-giving responsibilities, who offer their services as Bencher and manage to get elected, should get paid properly for this important work. It may be that some others, differently situated, do not need that income to survive, and in that case, they should receive a small honorarium or nothing. I have no idea why nobody has introduced a proposal like this (maybe somebody has?), which would make becoming a Bencher a realistic possibility for younger lawyers, social justice lawyers, new Moms etc, whose representation in Convocation is sorely needed by all of us similarly situated.

LSO BENCHER ELECTIONS

Why has campaign funding in these elections not been capped? It should have been – that would have been first on my to-do list had I been elected. Bay street funds its candidates to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars to campaign in these elections. I had $1000 (barely) available to me. These inequities have historically resulted in a lack of representation in Convocation by people like most of my colleagues and (in some respects) me – small, solo, racialized, women working in legal aid practices, representing vulnerable people charged with criminal offences. There should be policies leveling the campaign playing field.

Another issue that plagues the election process is the months-long leadup to these elections. I have no idea why two full months are needed to campaign before the vote. I firmly believe fewer people actually vote because people can’t take hearing about these elections any more by the time voting finally OPENS. The voting period itself is ridiculously long. There should be like a two week lead up and a 24-72 hour voting window. Everything is electronic now, right?

THIS ELECTION REALLY DOES MATTER

In closing, this Election is indeed very important. There are very real, pressing issues at stake.

I don’t know whether self-regulation is truly at stake, in the way some would suggest the sky will fall if the FullStop people are re-elected but also though the last four years have not been nice or fun for anyone. I doubt that much good resulted from the endless bickering and infighting on every minuscule problem that sucked up all the time and space within Convocation. Some of the candidates on that slate I understand hold political views that are flat-out repugnant and deeply troubling, which have no place in our governance.

I definitely agree that it would be a welcome development to see the important work of Convocation get moving again with a focus on what matters devoid of infighting, vitriol and rhetoric.

I think Convocation likely works best if the ultimately elected group is a mix of seasoned and experienced Benchers with a substantial influx of newcomers who are newer lawyers with a fresh perspective.

It’s tough to ensure that mix with or without coalitions.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

But you can do your part by making sure the votes you cast reflect the principled agendas you want pursued by the LSO that will serve your and your clients’ interest.

One last thing – this is not necessarily intuitive but the fewer votes you cast, the more likely your preferred candidate will be elected.

Our natural inclination when we really care about these elections (and this was my practice prior to running for Bencher) – is to cast all your 40 votes, because you don’t want to waste any.

BUT:

If there is ONE person you want to see elected, to make your vote really count for that person, vote ONLY for that person.

Of course inside Toronto does not compete with outside Toronto so you can cast one vote in each place.

Or, obviously, if you really want to see a few or a handful of your preferred candidates win, vote only for those few individuals.

When the various slates encourage you to vote for all 20 within Toronto and outside who are members of their group, that in itself is a kind of selfless gesture, right? Because each of the other 19 / 39 votes dilutes the impact of the vote cast for you.

If you vote for 40 people, your vote matters less relative to how well the other candidates will do.

That’s probably perfectly obvious to everyone – but I had to figure it out the hard way back in 2011.

I failed Statistics twice in undergrad, though, so you may not want to listen to me on the numbers side of this thing.

JOIN US FOR MONDAY’S IMPORTANT DISCUSSION

See you on Monday at our event, which I think will be incredibly interesting and helpful.

The event will run from 5:00pm to 6:00 pm EST on April 3rd, virtually by Zoom. You can still register here:

https://forms.gle/bMADokQcSnPKBZzR8

I am very proud of WiCCD for choosing to host all the women in criminal defence running in this election so that we may hear from each and you may put to them any question you want.

I believe this is a step in the right direction to assist our members in making independent and informed decisions when casting your vote.

Whatever you do, I hope that you do exercise your right to vote. It’s one thing we also pay for — the admin costs of these elections — and one of the rare opportunities for our individual voices to be directly heard and affect an outcome.