The 2000’s
Reflecting members’ wider interests, WLAO began to feature many inter-organizational programs such as with the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office, the LSUC, the Canadian Association of Women Executives and Entrepreneurs, and the Canadian Association of Black Lawyers. New scholarships, where community contributions and equality advocacy matter, were jointly established with McCarthy Tétrault and Aird…
The 1990’s
The WLAO in London and Ottawa formed and also honoured local women lawyer leaders. In response to demands from the LSUC electorate, The WLAO co-ordinated 9 legal associations in 1995, and 15 in 1999 to conduct the first and second All-Candidates Town Hall forums for bencher elections. Members Barb Hendrickson and Abby Bushby carried the…
The 1980’s
During the 1980’s, WLAO continued to support and celebrate the advancement of women lawyers, but sharpened its focus toward legal, professional and political issues for women. To add research for the LSUC’s study of women lawyers, Transitions, and Madam Justice Bertha Wilson’s Touchstones for Change: Equality, Diversity and Accountability, WLAO sponsored submissions, seminars and workshops…
The 1970’s
An endowment from member Judge Helen Kinnear expanded the WLAO-run scholarships. While Colleen Purvis Washington successfully advocated for women barristers’ private robbing rooms, ending decades of changing behind curtained areas in halls or behind temporary signs on men’s rooms, many young women entered the profession bringing demands for reform within and outside of the Association.…
The 1960’s
At the dawn of the 1960’s Mabel Van Camp, after six years as President of WLAO, became Canada’s first woman High Court Judge. Justice Van Camp gave the largest thanks to the YWCA and to the Girl Guides of Canada for their successful campaign to promote a woman to the judiciary.
The 1950’s
President Lily Sherizen authored a celebrated report recommending the creation of the first separate humane facility for the detention of juvenile offenders and took the lead to recommend enforcement of family support orders in out-of-province jurisdictions, all pro bono. Showing great versatility, WLAO organized the “Obiter Facta” Hobby Show in the fun-loving, family-oriented 50’s.
The 1940’s
When male lawyers were called to serve in WWII, the LSUC asked women lawyers to temporarily work the offices of soldiering lawyers. For the first time, women lawyers were welcomed into many large firms. WLAO opposed a move by the provincial government to lower the pay of women, not men, lawyers. The Canadian Bar Association…
The 1930’s
In 1933 the first three women lawyers ever hired by the Ontario government were singled out and laid off on the faulty basis that their salaries were not important in their families. WLAO leapt to their protection. The earliest records of women returning to work after childbearing years are documented in WLAO Archives. Seminar topics…
The 1920’s
Founding member Mary Buckley Laughton understood the importance of interchange between women in law at a time when most members worked as sole practitioners, or as the sole woman in law classes or professional in a law office, and called themselves the “one to three percenters”. She authored the first journal article by a Canadian…
Founded in 1919
22 years after Clara Brett Martin broke the gender barrier for all women in the British common law world, a mere 11 Ontario women had followed in her footsteps. A jurist who years earlier had sought a re-take of the vote admitting women to the Law Society of Ontario, wrote: “The admission of women is…