Value in Your Membership

by Margaret Ostrowski, QC

Let me give you my personal assurance of the value of your CBA membership. The CBA is the only organization that is the voice of the profession. It is our job to work for you – each of you – to advance your professional interests. I know that you have heard and read this before but it is increasingly important when we have accelerating erosion of our professional income base and image. Let me give you some examples.

The government recently approved the addition of notaries to those who can prepare section 9 agreements under the Representation Agreement Act. This has not been legislated yet but is in the works. The Cory Report recommends the licensing of paralegals to, inter alia, provide services related to uncontested divorces, represent the accused in some limited provincial offences and before some provincial administrative tribunals. Accountants continue to give legal advice in tax areas. Our Law Society is contemplating opening up the practice of law and letting the market place govern. The media continually jabs at lawyers as entrepreneurs of dubious ethics, often incompetent, and after the big, fast buck.

Our Law Society acts in the public interest and does a good job as the regulatory body, but it is not the voice of lawyers and does not speak for our interests. It is the CBA that is working to preserve our practice and standing up for our image.

This year our Branch is turning a new page. I think I am a different kind of President. I’ve worked hard to get here and am one of the few sole practitioners to make it. As the challenges of our profession accelerate, I find myself regularly devoting 60-70 per cent of my time to about 50 CBA issues. Our Executive are working harder than ever and we have more than 600 committed volunteers involved in forwarding our causes. I think we are the most efficient working machine that the Branch has had and we are more accountable. It has been a theme of mine for the many years I’ve been on the Executive and I am making changes. For the first time in the history of the Branch, I am reporting on a weekly basis to the Executive, the bylaws are adhered to, and I regard each concern of a member as a concern of ours. We are changing Branch operations to increase accountability at all levels. We accommodate differences.

Our new Executive Director, Frank Kraemer, started January 1st. Many of you probably know Frank as he has been a member of the CBABC for 26 years. He practised family law and civil litigation for 13 years, served six years as a PLTC instructor and left his position at Legal Services as a Regional Director to join us. Frank brings a new vision of operations to the branch. I write this at the end of his first week of work with us – I’m very impressed – we have a hard-working, very knowledgeable and quick Branch Director who also believes in accountability and high quality service to each of our members.

To conclude, I must tell you about a new initiative which involves helping members – for instance – litigators who are in unpleasant dealings with each other but notification of the Law Society is inappropriate, members who have concerns with other non lawyers in legal matters, members who are unhappy in firm break-ups. I believe the CBA should be providing a service to help. A working group chaired by Sandra Jacob-Hancock and Alison Narod is putting together a proposal for a “Members Conflict Resolution Service and Communications Advice”. They will be presenting it to the Executive at our next meeting and to Provincial Council in March. I’m proud and terribly enthusiastic about this initiative. Watch for it!

This article was published in the February 2001 issue of BarTalk. © 2001 The Canadian Bar Association. All rights reserved.