This is part one of a two part interview with lawyer, Lisa Bildy, about the recent Law Society of Ontario board elections. The board members are known as “benchers”. There are some 53 benchers at the LSO. 8 are known as the “Lay Benchers”; 20 elected from Toronto lawyers; 20 elected among lawyers outside of Toronto; and 5 elected from paralegals across Ontario.
In 2019, the STOP SOP (http://stopsop.ca/) slate of benchers, headed by Lisa, won 22 of the bencher seats – they were committed to ensuring that the law society stuck to its core mandate of ensuring legal professionals were competent rather than governing on “woke” ideology. It caused an upset – even they were not the majority they were instrumental in getting rid of the LSO’s Statement of Principles requirement.
This time, in 2023, under the banner of FULL STOP (https://fullstoplso.ca/) candidates lost to The Good Governance Coalition (https://www.goodgovernancecoalition.ca/) 45 seats to 0!
However, since the election two of the 45 were given government appointments and one was elected as “Treasurer” of the Law Society – which opened three seats. That meant that 3 of the FULL STOP slate are now benchers as they had the next highest votes in the bencher election.
Barry spoke with Lisa on this and the campaign she ran and what comes next.
Join us and listen in to what Lisa has to share.
Please note the views expressed by the individual(s) in this video are their own, and do not necessarily reflect the views or principles of the First Freedoms Foundation.
