The CBA is proud to offer a full range of professional development opportunities for legal professionals every year. Through CBA Sections and active volunteerism, our members help drive the agenda and shape our programming, ensuring thoughtful, informative and topical PD programs and activities.

CBA professional development by the numbers

In 2023–2024, we delivered:

National Conferences and Online Symposia

We organized 14 national conferences on topics from intellectual property to tax law, legal ethics and wellbeing. The conferences covered a range of practice areas—such as competition law, immigration law, labour and employment law, and more—and attracted registrants from across the country.

The Immigration Law Conference, held in Montreal in May 2024, had record-breaking attendance. We were honoured to welcome distinguished speakers, the Honourable Louise Arbour, former Supreme Court of Canada justice and UN High Commissioner for Refugees, and the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, Marc Miller, P.C.

Other notable speakers at CBA conferences this year included the Honourable Thomas A. Cromwell, former Supreme Court of Canada justice; the former Chief Justice of Ontario, the Honourable George R. Strathy; and Jessica Gan Lee, the Head of Privacy Legal at OpenAI.

The CBA ran four online symposia and over 40 webinars on emerging trends and recent developments in the law.

Sections

CBA Sections are central to our success as a national association. About 25,000 committed CBA members actively contribute to these practice-focused and interest-based groups. They analyze trends, respond to emerging issues, prepare submissions and resolutions, and plan events and resources to support legal professionals.

We rely on Sections to help drive the CBA’s advocacy work, initiatives and professional development programs. Close to 1,000 volunteers dedicated their time and expertise to serve on the Sections’ executive committees this year.

CBA Sections by the numbers

In 2023–2024, CBA Sections led important initiatives and produced an impressive number of tools. Among the many highlights:

Constitutional Rights

The French-Speaking Common Law Members Section launched a funny, witty and informative video made by the French-Canadian group Improtéine. The video aims to inform Canadians that Canada’s Constitution is not officially bilingual, inviting them to write to their Members of Parliament and Senators to urge them to act on the issue.

Criminal Convictions

The Criminal Justice Section released a revised edition of Collateral Consequences of Criminal Convictions, a must-read for legal professionals working on criminal cases. This report provides enhanced clarity on how criminal convictions can impact clients before sentencing takes place.

Competition Law Podcast

The Competition Law and Foreign Investment Section continued producing its podcast, Counterfactual. The program informs and entertains people about topics crucial to the constantly evolving profession of competition law and its related policies.

Immigration Pro-Bono Services

The Immigration Law Section continued to provide pro-bono legal consultations for hundreds of Afghan and Ukrainian refugees in Canada. They extended their offerings in 2023–2024 by launching an initiative to provide pro-bono services to people directly affected by the crises in Sudan and Israel–Palestine.

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