Vote Cooper

As a resource and tool for its membership, the Law Society must launch an education portal. The portal will be free and available to all members and will contain content from archived events one year and older. This would enable up to date information to be shared, as well as provide membership with the necessary practice resources. The implementation of this portal will not compete nor inhibit revenue stream derived by the Law Society from current CPD events.

Current CPD events provided by the Law Society must allocate a portion of their programs to have free registration for young members at the Bar. This will promote and facilitate young members’ access to continuing education and the opportunity to network with mentors. These events must also provide free webcast accessibility to young members not located in large urban centres so that education is accessible throughout the province.

I believe mentorship is our profession’s greatest resource. Providing quality education and guidance to junior members of the bar is necessary for the betterment of the profession and the protection of the public. Individuals who undertake this vital role should be able to submit their mentorship hours to qualify for CPD credits.

NO! I am absolutely against the introduction of Alternative Business Structures. It is my position that such a proposal is fraught with potential pitfalls and threatens the independence of counsel.

Alternative Business Structures do not ensure access to justice, but rather support the delivery of the most cost efficient representation. ABS will result in the loss of quality representation to the detriment of our profession and service to the public.

My platform centres on promoting initiatives that help improve the quality of the Bar through education, mentorship, and civility. Creating a stronger Bar will ensure that the public’s interests are protected. Alternative Business Structures run contrary to this notion and will reduce the competency level and independence of the legal profession.

I will strongly lead initiatives at the Law Society to help with the retention of women in private practice, as well as promote and assist racialized lawyers in entering and remaining within our profession. It is my platform that the stronger these program initiatives are, the stronger and more representative our profession will be.

I will push to establish a fulsome parental leave program through the Law Society. I will also lead the Law Society to lobby Legal Aid to create a supplementary parental leave program for lawyers who have a legal aid practice.

Beyond programs we need stronger encouragement and support for our membership, especially women and diverse individuals. There must be a strong and clear message from the Law Society so that the Law Society Benchers actually promote diversity amongst their membership. Implementing education programs and mentorship programs to help all members succeed in practice is the first step. What is also required is a unanimous stand on issues that offend the principles of diversity, such as the Benchers lack of unanimity on the vote against accreditation of Trinity Western Law School.

In order to protect small firms and sole practitioners, the Law Society needs to develop programs that support individuals who work on the front lines. To assist with the unique challenges that these practitioners face, it is my position that a new support system should be undertaken by an office independent of practice advisory to focus solely on new members and sole and small firm practitioners. This support office would help with the various challenges these practitioners face on a day to day basis, from ethical concerns, to education, to technology and accounting.

We also need to improve on programs for matching retiring lawyers and young lawyers (in both rural and urban areas) to provide an opportunity for seamless transition and continued viability of established sole/small practices. It is important to ensure that workable exit and succession strategies for retiring practitioners are considered. I recommend the establishment of an opt-in retirement plan for members. The Law Society has the ability to leverage the present infrastructure with LawPro to create a separate division to manage such an asset pool.

The Benchers must make it a priority to review the current disciplinary process. As part of this process, the Law Society must adopt a proactive and preventative stance on discipline as a fundamental principle. Education should be the priority long before discipline ever sets in. It is my view that many disciplinary actions can be prevented if membership is provided with proper education, tools and support.

The Law Society must also recognize the importance of the principle that counsel be independent. Discipline must be fair and proportionate. A fair process is not a weak process. We must include for the benefit of all our members the implementation of a full time duty counsel to augment the volunteer roster.

To avoid overregulation, the Law Society as a self-governing regulator, needs to implement an office of an independent Ombudsman.

Since July 2010, lawyers in Ontario have collected and remitted billions of tax dollars to our government through the payment of HST charged on legal fees. The province has not yet been called upon to account for the provincial portion of the HST collected. The province has collected its fair share of resources and has a direct responsibility to equitably support access to justice, which includes a properly funded Legal Aid system.

As the Law Society has the right to appoint two Directors to Legal Aid Ontario, these appointed directors must have a mandate that recognizes this inequity. Their mandate must recognize the limits the Legal Aid tariff puts on users and providers of those services. We must call for an expansion of the eligibility requirements and a higher tariff for those providing these valued services.