Alberta lawyers are coming under increasing political pressure from their own regulator, the Law Society of Alberta (LSA.).On the afternoon of Monday July 17th, a number of Canadian lawyers and other professionals and citizens, wrote to the Premier, the Minister of Justice, members of provincial caucus and to the LSA itself, raising the alarm and pleading for the restoration of professional independence. That's because LSA has now declared that in order to be fully professionally competent, a lawyer must be a social justice advocate. It has recently introduced a new professional development profile and mandatory online planning tool by which lawyers who are not woke are encouraged to reflect on this failing and change it..This must be resisted now, before our legal system is irreparably damaged..I signed that letter too because for reasons I have explained in other articles, I see the politicization of our professional regulator as an immediate and serious threat to a free and democratic Canada. In the words of our Supreme Court of Canada, circa 1982:.“The public interest in a free society knows no area more sensitive than the independence, impartiality and availability to the general public of the members of the Bar and through those members, legal advice and services generally.”.My purpose here is to demonstrate, in just one small way, the danger LSA’s politics pose to your legal rights..Let me attempt to demonstrate this with two fictional lawyers..One, a traditional, independent lawyer with her own personal politics that she keeps out of her professional practice..The other a lawyer who, under the influence of his law school and professional regulator, has been “awakened” to intersecting structures of identity-based oppression which exist and operate, often invisibly, throughout society, including in our legal system. He believes he benefits from these oppressive structures, that he is unconsciously a bigot towards women and minority groups, and that his silence and apathy are nothing more than complicity in oppression. He has, therefore, come to embrace social justice as a critical social necessity. Oppressive structures must be dismantled and he will do so in his personal and professional life. This second lawyer is, in other words, “woke.”.Imagine then, one day, you are a man criminally charged with assaulting an indigenous woman — a crime of which you are completely innocent. The accusation will do damage enough but if convicted, much of what you have built in life will be destroyed. Your liberty, job, future job prospects, home, friends, and even spouse and family are all in jeopardy..Your situation is dire, but you comfort yourself: “I am innocent. I will hire a good lawyer, will be tried before an impartial judge, will tell the truth, and will be found not guilty.”.Imagine you retain our fictional, traditional lawyer. She is independent of political influence and can, wholeheartedly and without fear of reprisals, represent your interests. Privately, she thinks men assaulting women is a heinous evil. Regardless, she defends all of her clients with equal vigor, even men who admit they have assaulted women..When you meet her she has carefully reviewed the charge, she listens to your side of the story, reviews the law, combs through the prosecutor’s evidence, plans your defence and locates many witnesses and evidence which can prove your innocence. Because the complainant is an indigenous woman, your lawyer explains, it will be difficult to present some evidence and make some arguments, but assures you she will do her best. At trial she objects to the introduction of some evidence, argues for the introduction of other evidence (incurring the wrath of opposing counsel and at times, even the judge), cross-examines the prosecutor’s witnesses effectively, undermining their credibility and makes a compelling closing argument showing definitively (you hope) that you are not guilty..You don’t know if she believes that you are innocent, but she sure seems to..Now imagine that things go very differently. Instead, you retain our fictional, woke lawyer. He may not even take you as a client, not wanting to “reinforce patriarchal systems of oppression.” If he does take your case, cognizant of the importance of the #IBelieveHer movement and “trauma-informed legal practice,” he is suspicious of your story and even seems to believe the accusation against you. He is unwilling to even contact certain witnesses, telling you he will not call a witness to repeat harmful “myths” or “stereotypes.”.He explains that he is going to be very restrained in your defence and refuses to make several arguments you think demonstrate your innocence. The victim is a minority woman he cautions, and therefore “already the victim of intersectional oppression.”.He explains to you the difficulty, expense, uncertainty and impropriety of calling other witnesses and recommends against it. When you insist, he tells you he will quit because your instructions are unreasonable and unethical. He eventually agrees to call just one of the witnesses, but he seems embarrassed and half-hearted in his application to the Court, and the Court quickly disallows the witnesses from testifying..When your accuser takes the stand, your lawyer treats her with compassion and understanding, telling you later, “it would be unethical for me to retraumatize a victim of assault.” Plus, as an indigenous woman, he advises, she is already the victim of “inter-generational trauma,” and he refuses to be an “instrument of colonialism.”.Maybe I paint my woke lawyer too harshly, or maybe not harshly enough. Nevertheless, these imaginary lawyers are intended to demonstrate four very important things..First, how your lawyer thinks matters very much. Lawyers are not assembly-line workers who simply follow a set of clear instructions. While the law may often seem “black and white” it is far more often some shade of gray. Like other professionals, lawyers exercise a lot of judgment. How they think influences that judgment: what cases they take; how they plan a case; how they draft documents; how they interact with opposing counsel; how they present their case in Court; and, ultimately, whether and how they act to enforce your legal rights..Change how the lawyer thinks, and you change how the lawyer practices law..Second, when you come into contact with the law, you don’t just need a lawyer who has a law degree and was “called to the bar,” you need an advocate, someone who is fully on “your side” and will zealously fight for your — and only your — interests..Third, if you can’t find an advocate who will vigorously pursue your legal rights, those “rights” might as well not exist. As our scenario demonstrates, the difference between the traditional lawyer and the woke lawyer could very well be the difference between your wrongful criminal conviction and your innocence. For your legal rights to mean something, it’s important that you can find a lawyer with the skill and will to pursue them..Fourth, a woke lawyer is not your “textbook” lawyer. Being woke means the lawyer values one thing over all others: social justice (specifically, the modern version of that concept.) Whatever situation you find yourself in, if it has some social justice angle (and everything seems to have a social justice angle, even parks and rocks) you should expect your lawyer to pursue social justice. Your lawyer will pursue your legal rights if they don’t conflict with social justice, but when “push comes to shove” between your legal rights and wokeness, wokeness will win..This seems outlandish to suggest, but even the LSA seems to admit, at least, the possibility. In the LSA’s “Regulatory Objectives” (where the LSA describes what it intends to do with the regulatory power it wields over more than 10,000 practicing Alberta lawyers) it claims five objectives including: protecting clients; promoting the independence of the legal profession, the administration of justice and the rule of law; and “equity, diversity and inclusion” (otherwise known as social justice or wokeness.) On the topic of “push coming to shove”, the LSA tells us:.“ … there may be times when two or more of the regulatory objectives conflict with one another. In these cases, the Law Society will weigh the costs and benefits of aligning with each objective.”.With the use of my fictional criminal lawyers, I hope you can imagine then, in just one small way, how the Canadian legal system is likely to be transformed if the LSA, along with other Canadian regulators, continues its work of pushing wokeness on the profession. Eventually, you may refuse to hire the woke lawyer or you may fire him, but t will only be more woke lawyers to take his place..Now pan wider in your imagination and understand that a woke legal profession will affect your legal rights in virtually every other legal situation. It will affect you if you are drafting or subjected to corporate human resource policies. It will affect you if you are an employer or an employee. It will affect you if you wish to express an unpopular opinion in public. It will affect you if you research provocative topics. It will affect you as you try to move around Canada or pass through customs. It will affect you when you interact with government. It will affect you if you are fighting to retain the custody of your children..It's also important to understand that the way lawyers think, not only changes how they practice law, but also changes the law and the legal system itself. This is true of courtroom lawyers, whose cases are decided and become binding “precedents”, and is true of boardroom lawyers, w the law is applied to create the multitude of agreements, terms and conditions and policies which regulates virtually every aspect of modern life. The LSA acknowledges this:.“The actions that lawyers take have the potential to affect not only the clients they represent, but also society as a whole. Likewise, many decisions and actions taken by the Law Society have the potential to impact the societal view of the legal profession and the profession’s role in the legal system.”.Understand too that many woke lawyers will one day become many woke judges. To be eligible as a judge in a federal or provincial court, it is already required, or soon to be required, that judges or candidates complete reeducation in social justice. When judges decide cases they make law, both for the parties in Court, and all other Canadians that may later be subject to that case as a “precedent.”.If you are reading this and value things like the rule of law, personal freedom and democracy, I would strongly encourage you to help reject woke politics from the Law Society of Alberta. One concrete thing you can do is to sign your name to the letter and ask your friends and family to do the same..It may be uncomfortable, socially, professionally or even financially to openly oppose something labelled “social justice.” Opponents of wokeness are invariably labeled some kind of bigot. But these crude insults are slowly losing their sting, having so frequently been deployed, reflexively and thoughtlessly, in place of rational argument..But get uncomfortable, because the “comfortable” alternative is to walk, meekly and mutely off a civilizational cliff.
