Point: Regulating Diversity

  • November 10, 2016

For Equality & Diversity: A Call to Action

The Canadian population is becoming more diverse. As noted by the Law Society of British Columbia, by 2031 one third of Canada’s population will be comprised of visible minority communities. To effectively service the legal needs of this more diverse population, the legal profession must learn to adapt its service models and increase its efforts to better embrace diversity.

The corporate world has also taken notice of Canada’s increasingly diverse population and has demanded mirror policies for diversity and inclusion from its legal service providers. For example, Canada’s general counsel community introduced an initiative entitled: “Legal Leaders for Diversity: A Statement of Support for Diversity and Inclusion by General Counsel in Canada.” This initiative has over 60 signatories committed to practicing and advancing diversity and inclusion within the workplace. The corporate world is not immune to the forces driving diversity.

Meaning of Diversity
Diversity means respect for, and appreciation of, differences in ethnicity, gender, age, national origin, disability, language, sexual orientation, education, socio-economic class, and religion.

Forces Driving Diversity
Migration to Canada and other parts of the world is increasing for various reasons, and this has heightened our awareness of people who may have different cultural, religious and linguistic qualities. The distant other may now be our neighbour. 

Another force contributing to greater diversity is the rapid growth of technology (particularly telecommunications) which permits people to communicate faster, at lower cost, and across greater distances. The world as a result has become a smaller place, where people are able to interact across linguistic, cultural or geographical boundaries.

Lastly, the media presents information about distant communities that we in the west may never have head of before, nor were exposed to in the past. The increase in available information through the media may not necessarily contribute to an advancement of our knowledge about these communities, and may in fact result in more confusion as the media may not provide sufficient content to help situate this information. Consequently, this has the potential to threaten our ability to embrace diversity and may lead some to paint people of a certain class, relation, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age, sex, etc. with the same brush. 

Importance of Encouraging Diversity Within the Profession
It is important that the legal profession encourage diversity in order to ensure public confidence in the justice system and give all people, no matter what their background, a chance to be heard and represented in a consistent, fair and objective manner.

As Chief Justice McLachlin stated in her remarks at Canada’s Legal System at 150: Democracy and the Judiciary: “appointments to the bench should reflect the diversity of the society they are called upon to judge.” Accordingly, Chief Justice McLachlin has advocated for minority and indigenous populations to be appointed to lower courts so that they may work their way up through the judiciary.

A Call to Action
Adapting to serve the legal needs of a more diverse population first requires that we must recognize the importance of promoting diversity within the profession. This requires dialogue, tolerance and an ability to listen to someone that we may not know or like. The process does not simply take care of itself. It requires planning, persistence and creativity. A laissez-faire approach could jeopardize our ability to capitalize on the opportunity that an enriched diversity within the profession presents. These opportunities are: 

  • Enhance or complimentary skill sets of people with varied backgrounds;
  • To better serve clients that are increasingly diverse as a result of globalization, migration and multiculturalism; and
  • Different perspectives, best practices and lessons learned that can be brought to the table servicing clients.

Some of the approaches that the legal profession could undertake to promote diversity may include:

  • Task forces or committees with diverse members who have credibility with their colleagues and a stake in the outcome. The mission of those groups could be to identify goals, develop strategies and monitor their effectiveness.
  • Providing mentoring programs and training in unconscious bias.
  • Developing bias-free performance evaluations and work assignment systems. For example, developing evaluation systems that focus on competencies rather than subjective impressions. This could ensure that client service teams capitalize on the diversity of their lawyers and could also address subjective cultural norms that may sometimes guide the way performance evaluations and work assignments are conducted.
  • Supporting workplace initiatives and expanding efforts to increase the pool of qualified minority practitioners through scholarships and mentoring.

To make all these reforms possible, policies must not be seen as affirmative action, but as organizational priorities in which everyone has a stake. The legal profession must not simply acknowledge the importance of diversity, but also hold individuals accountable for the results. The challenge is to create a sense of unity and to translate policies and rhetorical commitments into daily practices. Everyone, including the Law Society, the CBA and the individual lawyers share the onus for promoting equality and diversity in the profession. 


Noren Hirani is an Associate in the Intellectual Property Group at Gowling WLG (Canada) LLP in Calgary and Chair of the Alberta Branch - Equality Committee of the CBA. She studied law in French at the University of Ottawa and grew up in Ottawa.