Governance gone wrong: examining self-regulation of the legal profession

ABSTRACT England and Australia have abandoned self-regulation of the legal profession, yet Canadian law societies continue to function on this basis. This article argues that the self-regulatory model on which the Law Society of Ontario (the ‘LSO’) operates represents an inadequate form of governance in terms of the accountability it yields. When compared to other organisations, including law societies in other common law jurisdictions as well as corporations, the weaknesses in the LSO's governance model are conspicuous. This article advocates replacing self-regulation in Ontario's legal profession with a co-regulatory regime. In the absence of such an extensive reform, this article puts forward recommendations for changes to the current bencher model of governance on which the LSO is based including the implementation of bencher expertise requirements and a duty of loyalty and a statutory duty of care to the public.