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

11/09/23 • 60 min

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 [email protected]!

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 responsibiliti...

Touchstones Report Executive Summary:

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.

Summary of Recommendations

Previous Episode

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

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)

Next Episode

Touchstones 30th Anniversary - Ep.3: Intersectionality

How the Bertha Wilson Task Force took an intersectional approach to their work on gender equality at a time when the phrase intersectionality was still an obscure legal term that had only recently been coined. This Episode begins with a compilation of lived experiences of junior, senior, and anywhere in-between, women lawyers from all walks of life and from all across Canada. Interviews by Rebecca Brown and Julia Tétrault-Provencher.