What One Thing to Advance Women in Law Will You Do?

Seeing that in March we celebrate International Women’s Day, it’s perfect timing to remind you about my post from this time last year: It’s Time to Hear Her Story and Raise Her Profile. That post was one of my top five most-read posts in 2018 (the most-read post was Efforts to Retain Women in Law In and Outside of Law Firms). 

Please take a few minutes to read it. When you do, have the mindset that everyone has a role to play in the advancement of women in law — not only female lawyers. As I wrote last year: 

Think about a woman in law you can work with on a file of significance, mentor, or give a shout out to. Think about who in your network you can reach out to in terms of arranging a business development introduction, board involvement, speaking or writing opportunity, or mentoring relationship, for a female lawyer.

Upcoming Events Advancing Women in Law

In terms of events related to women in law, below are some occurring in Ontario in March and April this year. Some even focus on the use of social media!

• Women’s Breakfast: The Power of Social Media, which occurs in Toronto on March 1 just before The Advocates’ Society’s Labour Arbitration Advocacy: Focus on Evidence program begins — speakers include Erin Cowling (Flex Legal), Kelly Doctor (Goldblatt Partners LLP) and Erin H. Durant (Borden Ladner Gervais LLP)

• International Women’s Day 2019 program on March 6 in Toronto which will focus on artificial intelligence, unconscious bias and social change — this event is in partnership with the Barbra Schlifer Clinic, Women Lawyers Forum Section of the Ontario Bar Association, Women’s Law Association of Ontario, Canadian Association of Women Executives and Entrepreneurs, Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund and the Criminal Lawyer Association

• Be Bold For Change – International Women’s Day Business Luncheon in Barrie on March 8 — this luncheon is in support of the Women and Children’s Shelter of Barrie and the keynote speaker is Leanne Townsend (Townsend Law)

• OBA Solution Circles is a series of short meetings in Toronto for all genders to identify issues and help build solutions to advance gender equality – on March 20 the topic will be “Child Care Challenges as Barriers to Gender Equality”, and on April 25, “Listening to and Crediting Women as a Path to Advancing Gender Equality”

• Women’s Speed Mentoring Event on March 21 in Ottawa, hosted by the County of Carleton Law Association Diversity Committee

• Women’s Networking Event in London on April 4 — the presentation “Millennials: What you need to know about Gen Y!” will be part of this Middlesex Law Association event

• Rethinking “Having It All”: A Solo and Small Firm Perspective on Parenting While Lawyering in Toronto on April 4 — this is an OBA Lawyers Forum program (chairs: Rachel Sachs (CIBC) and Ashley Waye (Waye Law); moderator: Laroux Peoples (Peoples Law); speakers: Shayna Beeksma (Beeksma Law), Janine Innes, Adrienne Ng (Open LLP) and Adrienne Smith (Battista Smith Migration Law Group))

• 4th CLA Women in Criminal Law Conference on April 6 in Collingwood — this conference of the Criminal Lawyers’ Association has a session on “To Tweet or Not to Tweet: Social Media in the Criminal Law Practice” (moderator: Maya Shukairy (Shukairy Law); speakers: Anne-Marie McElroy (McElroy Law) and Danielle Robitaille (Henein Hutchison LLP))

• Women’s Speed Mentoring: The Track to Success on April 10 in Toronto – Renu Madhane, Chief Commissioner of the Ontario Human Rights Commission, will be the opening speaker of this event, which is hosted by the OBA Women Lawyers Forum, CABL (Canadian Association of Black Lawyers), FACL (Federation of Asian Canadian Lawyers) and SABA (South Asian Bar Association)

• Stories, Tales, and Reflections from Asian Women in Law on April 29 in Vaughan – this panel is hosted by the Federation of Asian Canadian Lawyers’ GTA North (speakers: Justice Mavin Wong, Anna Wong (Landy Marr Kats), and Mabel Lai (Crown Law Office Criminal))

Reflecting on Gender, Diversity and Equality 

I was fortunate to have had the opportunity to moderate the “Gender, Diversity and Equality” panel a few days ago at the Ontario chapter of the Federation of Asian Canadian Lawyers’ 12th annual conference, which was focused on “Practicing Law and Humanity”. (By the way, this conference had no all-male panels thanks to the conscious efforts of the conference planning committee, Osgoode’s Asian Law Association and U of T’s Asia Law Society; in fact, we had more female speakers!) 

FACL Ontario Co-President, and my Conference Co-Chair, Gerald Chan kindly invited me to fill in as moderator when he learned he was no longer able to continue with the role. I must give Gerald a big shout-out for thinking of me for this role and for doing all the heavy-lifting in coordinating all the panelists and providing me with his succinct outline for the panel discussion. 

The panelists were: the Honourable Justice Sandra Nishikawa, Ari Blicker (Aird & Berlis LLP), Sumeet (Sonu) Dhanju-Dhillon (Torkin Manes LLP), Monique Jilesen (Lenczner Slaght Royce Smith Griffin LLP), and Farah Malik (MAG Civil – Education/Training, Colleges and Universities Branch). They provided invaluable insight on topics like unconscious bias, parental leave, mentorship and sponsorships. You can read some of the discussion points on Twitter by searching #faclON19 (thanks to conference attendees including Law Times for live tweeting (February 23rd)).

While it was encouraging to hear that the needle is moving in terms of gender diversity and equality, we need to reflect further on what we can do and take steps to continue moving that needle forward. We need to find the courage and humanity within ourselves to lift us and one another up. Let’s succeed together.

So, what’s the one thing you’ll do to help advance women in law?