2022

As she takes the reins on March 1st, new OBA President Kelly McDermott is determined to ensure all Ontario lawyers come to know what she herself knows firsthand – the OBA is a supportive community that makes careers more satisfying and steps up when life and work collide. McDermott will focus her presidency on creating and formalizing reliable and accessible support networks to assist lawyers facing challenges in their careers and lives.

The Ontario Bar Association is recognizing two Windsor women for the significant impacts they have made through their access to justice work.

The Lawyer’s Daily reports on the OBA announcing Mante Molepo, the founder and CEO of Mante Molepo Consulting, as our new Innovator in Residence.

Mante Molepo has been named the 2022-23 Ontario Bar Association Innovator in Residence and will lead the association’s new career accelerator for Indigenous and racialized lawyers in emerging areas of law.

On November 1, 2022, two new mediation programs will launch in Hamilton Unified Family Court by its court-connected mediation and information service provider, AXIS Family Mediation Inc. (“AXIS”).

November is Make a Will Month, and the Ontario Bar Association (OBA) is once again spearheading a campaign to educate the public about the need for a will and how lawyers can help people draft one properly. Throughout the month, volunteers from the OBA will be leading free information sessions for the public in communities across Ontario.

The government has once again invoked the notwithstanding clause so that their legislation prohibiting a strike and unilaterally imposing contract terms will operate even if it violates the rights protected by sections 2, 7 and 15 of the Charter. These include the rights to free speech, association, and peaceful assembly, the right not to be deprived of life, liberty or security of the person except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice and equality rights.

Regional Senior Justice Warkentin issued a notice to the profession today.

This October, as we celebrate the 30th Anniversary of Women’s History Month – with the theme “She Did, So Now I Can” – we asked the trailblazers who are making OBA history as members of our Board’s very first all-female officers team about who inspires them today, and how they are leading inclusively and working to advance gender equality in the legal profession.

An editorial in The Lawyer’s Daily from OBA President Karen Perron on rewards of practising in areas of Ontario outside of the GTA.