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It's a clear prelude to doing to lawyers what the College of Psychologists is doing to Jordan Peterson

Why am I running for bencher (governor) in the upcoming Law Society of Ontario elections?

With more years of practice than I care to admit, high-profile clients and cases that I still have fun with, six books, editor-in-chief duties at a national law report, and more cases at our highest court and provincial courts of appeal than any other employment lawyer in Canadian history, I should be ready to slow down. Or as the late, great Justice Randy Echlin used to tell me, Howard, time to stop and smell the roses and that was 20 years ago.

But there is a crisis.

We saw it with Dr. Jordan Peterson when his regulatory body, the Ontario College of Psychologists, ordered mandatory re-education and took steps to discipline him for conservative political opinions unrelated to his practice of psychology, which he has not actually practiced in recent years.

The Law Society of Ontario, historically governed by the establishment elite, in recent years began implementing overreaching progressive principles requiring all lawyers to think and practise in a certain way, a way that has nothing to do with what the law actually requires. Its a clear prelude to doing to lawyers what the College of Psychologists is doing to Peterson, if the law society doesnt like what any of us are saying. This is particularly egregious since lawyers are societys protectors of freedom of speech and of those exercising it.

Lawyers are societys protectors of freedom of speech

I was personally spoken to by the law society a couple of years back when I referred to a decision of a provincial privacy commissioner, in my regular Financial Post opinion column, as boneheaded, which, by the way, it was. When I responded that I was writing as a journalist of some 25 years, not as part of my legal practice, the answer was But you are a lawyer just as the college did with Peterson.

The law society has a statutory mandate to ensure lawyers do not defraud the public and are educated in their craft. And that is a good thing. But it does not need 550 employees and a salary budget of over $72,000,000 to do that. Imagine the average salary of a law society employee is $131,000.

Think about that. How many lawyers compensate their highest paid staff members anywhere close to that? For that matter, the average lawyer in Ontario makes only $93,000 a year. When you factor in the many lawyers in big firms earning seven figures, how many lawyers make next to nothing to bring the average down that much? What is little known is that the average Ontario lawyer makes the same amount as the average public school teacher, despite the much greater education, longer hours, longer work year, and actual risk, not only financial but even from our own law society.

In other words, many Ontario lawyers cannot afford the exorbitant dues they already have to pay, the highest in North America double those of the much more litigious bars of either New York or California. They are a barrier to entry for any new lawyer and further impact access to justice for our clients, particularly working Ontarians.

The real nub of all of this is that, when a lawyer hears from the law society, they react like all of us do when, however innocent we may actually be, we spot a police car immediately behind us as we drive. But the threat is dramatically greater. Even a frivolous complaint can send us into paroxysms of fear followed by months of legal fees and time defending ourselves from pure nonsense. And the mission creep is going to make the potential for law society attack against any lawyer all the more expansive and egregious.

The initial Statement of Principles (SOP), enacted in 2016, was repealed after the past bencher election, when the predecessor of the group I am running with was elected. But if the opposing slate is elected this time, the rejected SOP will be reintroduced in a different form.

Most lawyers just want to be left alone to help their clients and practise law. The law society is standing in their way. I hope with my group to be able to stop this insidious mission creep and return the law society to its core mandate of protecting the public and fostering competence.

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Howard Levitt: The Ontario law society's slide into wokeness must ... - Lexology