The most widely read magazine for Canadian lawyers
Issue link: https://digital.canadianlawyermag.com/i/50821
opinion BACK PA G E BY EZRA LEVANT W Socialism doesn't work hat do revolutionaries do once the revolution is over? That's the question facing the feminists at the Law Society of Upper Canada. Every single year this decade, Ontario's law schools have graduated more women than men. The statistics are similar across North America. Too much more of this and men — 49 per cent of the population, but constituting only about 40 per cent of law schools, and medical schools too — might start talking about "sys- temic discrimination." It's not discrimination on the part of the universities. It's dis- crimination by young men, who are choosing not to enroll in law school. (That's not to say Cana- dian law schools don't engage in some systemic discrimination: most have lower LSAT requirements for certain groups. The problem with lowering admission standards, though, is that weaker students often fail exams, especially if they're graded on a curve against regular students. A solution hatched when I was in law school was to exempt aboriginal students, for example, from writing the property law exam, which was partic- ularly tough — Eurocentric, I believe, was the phrase. But that only worked if employers, in turn, would lower their standards by hiring a student who hadn't mastered property law — almost invariably, a government agency fulfilling its own quotas.) But getting into law school and getting jobs aren't a prob- lem for women. There simply isn't evidence of sexism, either in school admissions or in law firm recruiting. The discrimina- tion comes later: when female lawyers discriminate against the profession, leaving private practice for more rewarding pur- suits — in-house counsel with its lower emphasis on billable hours, or leaving work altogether to raise a family. Those decisions have troubled the feminists at the law soci- ety. They're no longer interested in just giving women a choice. They're interested in having women make a particular choice — choosing lawyering over being a stay-at-home mom. The Greeks had a story about this: a bandit from Attica named Pro- crustes would invite travellers to sleep in his iron bed. If they were too tall, he'd cut them to size; if they were too short, he'd stretch them on the rack. Today we call it social engineering. Much of the law society's brave new plan is simply a hash of generic buzz words — the sign of expensive consultants at work. Women need more "mentoring" and "networking" 62 JULY 2008 www. C ANADIAN Law ye rmag.com opportunities. They're setting up a "think tank" to change the legal "culture." I'm not sure if any of that adds to what smart law firms already know and have been doing for years. But the law society did add something new: a subsidy for lawyers who get pregnant, financed by a tax on all other lawyers who don't. A new lawyer's levy will go to finance a $3,000/month maternity ben- efit. Of course, that benefit will be available to dads, but even the law society's consultants acknowledge that it will be overwhelmingly a payment to moms. Not many mothers would determine whether or not they spend time with their newborns based on $3,000 a month. What's changed is that the law society now fancies itself a great leveller, taxing those who decide to work full tilt, and subsi- dizing those who don't. LSUC Bencher Clayton Ruby knows that's what this is re- ally about. He told the Toronto Star that the "next step" is to change billing procedures so that billing more hours is no longer the key to law firm advancement. And why not? The law society knows what's best for moms, and now it's moving from its ineffective bully pulpit to actually intervening in the market. If a law society can take money from female lawyers who choose to go back to work right away and give that money to female lawyers who don't, why can't the law society tell firms to take money from lawyers who bill big hours to subsidize those who don't or can't? Of course, none of this has to do with better serving clients. Clients who value workaholic lawyers will seek them out; cli- ents who value part-timers or lawyers who take maternity leave will seek them out. Going to law school is fun. Working 60 hours a week? Not so much. Not everyone believes that being a partner at a big law factory is the most important thing in life; career planning — like other economic decisions — is about opportunity costs. Utopians like Ruby want a world where moms can live $50,000-a-year lifestyles, but earn $250,000 a year. It's called socialism, and it doesn't work. Ezra Levant is a Calgary lawyer. He can be reached at ezra@ezralevant.com ILLUSTRATION: SCOTT PAGE