Article content continued

Bildy ran the StopSOP campaign from her dining-room table on a shoestring budget, soliciting small donations from rank-and-file lawyers fed up with ideological regulators pushing them around. She co-ordinated mass emails and media hits, and when the lawyers on her team inevitably disagreed, she was able to herd the cats. She reined in her team members when some were tempted to engage in Twitter wars, insisting on the high road and ignoring the venom directed her way. Beneath the calm exterior was a fearless fighter made of steel. When the dust settled and the vote was announced on May 1, all of StopSOP’s lawyer candidates had won (including, remarkably, the top 10 spots in Toronto). Defeated incumbents and high-profile candidates were shocked.

We won 22 of 40 lawyer seats, which does not amount to an overall majority on the board once five paralegals and eight lay benchers are added in. Nothing is guaranteed, but turning the page at the law society is at least now a possibility. Our benchers are not a political party and do not agree on all issues, but they are of one mind that the SOP must be repealed. They also aim to rein in the Law Society of Ontario’s ever-expanding regulatory agenda, bureaucracy and budget, so large now that it now rivals that of the city of Oshawa, Ont.

One defeated incumbent observed that the election was “the first time in the history of the law society that you’ve seen a well-organized, obviously well-funded, group of individuals run as a slate on a single issue.” In truth, there was no well-funded electoral machine. We had Lisa Bildy, her computer, a dining-room table and a team with a conviction about what was right. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, there is no limit to what can be accomplished if it doesn’t matter who gets the credit — but here’s to giving credit where credit is due.

Bruce Pardy is Professor of Law at Queen’s University, a member of the Law Society of Ontario and part of the StopSOP team.

pardyb@queensu.ca

Twitter.com/PardyBruce