3.2% of Ontario’s lawyers are Black. Why that’s a problem for law and society
The Law Society of Ontario, which represents more than 55,000 lawyers says only 3.2 percent of Ontario’s lawyers are Black. This is no different from so many industries (including news media) but it still led Ryan Watkins — one of the city’s leading employment law experts — to conduct an analysis of 12 leading law firms of Toronto. He found the firms have more than 1,500 partners listed in Ontario and only 16 — or 1 percent — of them are Black. He speaks to Saba Eitizaz about why there are not enough Black lawyers, what that means for Canada and how we look at justice and the lack of Black representation in civic spaces.
