For Immediate Release
July 26, 2007
OTTAWA – The Canadian Bar Association has condemned in the strongest possible way the cover story in the Aug. 6 edition of Maclean’s magazine that paints a distorted, one-sided and sensationalized picture of the legal profession.
“By cherry-picking the worst cases of lawyer misconduct, the article has tarnished the reputation of thousands of professionals who are honest, hard-working, and community-minded people,” says CBA President J. Parker MacCarthy, Q.C. of Duncan, B.C. “Lawyers defend their clients’ interests on a daily basis, and there are countless examples of lawyers who provide pro bono legal services in their communities.”
The Maclean’s article is a broadside against the legal profession that doesn’t tell the whole story. In Canada, provincial law societies are vigilantly maintaining standards of professional conduct and disciplining lawyers who fail to meet them. Law societies look out for the interests of the public, by investigating complaints and taking necessary disciplinary action.
In those isolated cases when lawyers break the law, they are treated no differently than anyone else in society. “If they break the law, they are subject to the law and all its penalties,” says Parker MacCarthy.
Lawyers’ conduct is governed by strict and enforceable Codes of Conduct in each province and territory. The CBA’s model Code of Professional Conduct, updated in 2006, guides lawyers on many areas of their professional work including integrity, legal skill, discriminatory behaviour, conflict of interest, and confidentiality.
The CBA is a strong proponent of access to justice, or making the justice system more “user-friendly” to the average person. The association has lobbied for increased funding for civil legal aid for more than two decades. Its legal aid test case on the need for a constitutional right to civil legal aid for poor people is currently before the courts.
The Canadian Bar Association is dedicated to improvement in the law and the administration of justice. Some 37,000 lawyers, law teachers, and law students from across Canada are members.
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CONTACT: Hannah Bernstein, Canadian Bar Association, Tel: (613) 237-2925, 1-800-267-8860 ext. 146; E-mail: hannahb@cba.org.
