Introduction

Beginning in 2009, the Law Society of Ontario began collecting and publishing licensees’ self-reported social marker identification data based on a set of close-ended questions. Data is collected from licensees’ required annual reports. This data sets out distributions of race, gender, Indigeneity, and other social markers alongside data such as age and area and context of practice (sole practitioners, in-house counsel, other employment, and clinics). Respondents could choose not to answer these questions. Also note that diversity data is limited in its ability to reflect the wide range of social markers and is often a crude representation of lived experiences. Nonetheless, it can give a small window into gaps and trends. As other studies have shown, social markers have important correlations with place of employment, career advancement, and how long lawyers stay in the profession.

As of 2018:

• of the 29.3% of lawyers who self-identify as racialized, 56% identify as female. 2.9% of the legal profession self-identify as Indigenous,
• 57.2% of Indigenous lawyers identify as female.
• a total of 4% of all licensees self-identified as LGBTQ2S and 45.1% of this group identified as female.
• 4.3% of lawyers entering the profession report having a disability.
• In all reported areas, there were increased percentages of lawyers self-reporting these social markers compared to the previous year.

Significant additional findings from the 2018 report are as follows:

“Men are more likely to be sole practitioners, 25.6% versus 14.7% for women, and men more likely to be law firm partners, 21.4% versus 8.7% for women. There is a higher proportion of women in all the other categories, including employment in- house, at clinics, for government and in education. While women lawyers are younger than men, on average, this does not account for the gender difference in partners. In the 45-54, 55-64 and 65 and older age groups, respectively 13.3, 13.3 and 14.8% of women are partners, compared to 28.6, 30.3 and 28.4% of men.

More generally, in every age group men are more likely to be sole practitioners and partners. But up to age 44 there is only a smaller preponderance of men among law firm associates, so women associates are considerably less likely to become partners. Women are more likely to leave law firms in their 30’s for employment in government, education and in-house.”

There are also correlations between social markers and area of practice and place of employment. The LSO reports that 22% of self-identified Indigenous lawyers are sole practitioners. This is the highest concentration of Indigenous lawyers across the specified legal environments (in-house, law firm employees, law firm associates or partners). A similar trend holds for racialized lawyers. Black, Filipino, and South Asian lawyers were most likely to be in a sole practitioner environment at 31%, 31%, and 29% respectively. In contrast, white lawyers who predominately find themselves employed as law firm associates. Notably, there are also low numbers of Black partners (6%) and associates (15%).

This data echoes an LSO-commissioned report titled “Working Together for Change: Strategies to Address Issues of Systemic Racism in the Legal Professions”. The report noted that “racialized licensees were more likely to go into sole practice as a result of barriers faced in other practice environments… Internationally trained lawyer and paralegals face additional barriers in the professions.”

This is important for clear reasons of representation and seeing oneself in the makeup of the profession. It is also important for insurance and other practice-related reasons.