Diversity on Bay Street: Knocking on the Diversity Wall

Aron Nimani

Nabila Pirani (2L)

On November 13th, the South Asian Law Students’ Association (SALSA) hosted its first of two panels on diversity in the legal profession. Diversity on Bay Street brought together current and former lawyers to discuss issues relating to gender, sexual orientation, race, and ethnicity.

While student turnout at the event was high for a Thursday evening (with over forty students from a variety of backgrounds and years of study in attendance), members of the administration were noticeably absent despite having provided half of the event’s funding.

From the first question—on challenges faced by people from diverse backgrounds entering and advancing on Bay Street—it was evident there would be significant differences in opinion amongst those in attendance. One panellist took issue with the assumption that diverse peoples face barriers at all, calling on attendees to look at their diverse backgrounds and experiences as advantages that set them apart in a positive way. Another detailed various systemic and self-imposed barriers to entry and advancement faced by women and diverse peoples. These included unconscious and conscious biases during the hiring process on the part of both interviewers and students.

Later in the evening, one panellist’s suggestion that the profession is already diverse—“We [panellists from diverse backgrounds] are Bay Street”—was met with general uproar. One student pointed out that statistics on diversity in the legal profession strongly indicate otherwise, notwithstanding progress that has been made.

What perhaps best characterized the event was the panellists’ emphasis on self-empowerment and the “Lean In” philosophy. Whether it was self-advocating to ensure support for one’s scheduling choices post-maternity leave, coming out as LGBTQ+ in the workplace, or speaking up against senior lawyers in the face of discrimination, a majority of the panellists (particularly those still on Bay Street) seemed to agree that a significant portion of the onus to alleviate diversity-related challenges is on the diverse peoples themselves.

While self-empowerment is a key piece of the diversity puzzle, placing the onus for change on diverse peoples in or seeking to enter the legal profession is problematic. While the general capacity for self-empowerment exists in everyone, the opportunities to exercise it are still dependent on environmental factors and constraints.

To draw from situations presented by some of the panellists, take the example of two young racialized female lawyers in the following circumstances. One has just returned to work after maternity leave and wants to rearrange her schedule to allow for time with her child. The other believes she was left out from lunch plans with colleagues working on an important file because of a senior partner’s implicit race bias.

For the lawyer returning from maternity leave, any discrimination faced by her in rearranging her schedule would largely be based on institutionalized policies regarding billable and general work hours, and thus would be objective and structural in nature. Self-empowerment in this context would involve navigating pre-existing, institutionalized boundaries and inserting the lawyer’s subjective self into a largely objective system.

By contrast, the lawyer excluded from lunch plans would face a form of discrimination that is inherently subjective, and thus less tangible. As one panellist commented, it is possible that the senior partner invited the first people that he saw and they just happened to be white males. Self-empowerment in this context would require challenging the senior partner’s subjective and discretionary decision-making, which (because of its subjectivity) would allow him to claim that the exclusion was not based on race, but on more mundane factors. Accordingly, in inserting objectivity-based human rights principles into subjective and discretionary thought, the lawyer would face the incredibly difficult task of introducing boundaries to a nebulous space.

One can imagine how being self-empowered in the second situation would be more difficult than in the first. The lawyer would not only risk damaging relationships with her colleagues and other attitudinal consequences. Should she choose to address the issue of race bias head on, rather than asking to be included during the next lunch event, she would risk being known as the person who cried “wolf”–or “racism,” in this case.

In the face of crippling student debt, a highly competitive legal market, and other factors, addressing the partner’s implicit race bias is a risk many would be loathe to take. As one student said, in circumstances such as this, the onus to address conscious and unconscious biases should not rest solely on the diverse person. It is also on the profession.

Any discourse on barriers facing diverse peoples in the profession requires an inclusive and safe space for the discussion of often disparate ideas. As Professor Anita Anand said about the event, “The issue of diversity on Bay Street [and in the legal profession in general] is extremely important…This is the beginning of many discussions about diversity in our profession and I am so pleased to be a part of them.”

While the process may sometimes feel like knocking on a wall that does not yet know it is a door, SALSA is committed to advancing discourse at U of T Law on the issue of diversity in the private and public legal sectors.


Nabila is Co-Chair of the South Asian Law Students’ Association. SALSA welcomes suggestions and comments at [email protected].

Moderator: Hadiya Roderique (Rotman PhD student; former Associate, Fasken Martineau DuMoulin). Panellists: John Clifford (Partner, McMillan); Zehra Sheerazi (Associate, Torys); Awanish Sinha (Partner, McCarthy Tétrault); Troy Ungerman (Partner, Norton Rose Fulbright); and Ritu Bhasin (Principal and Founder of Bhasin Consulting; former Bay Street lawyer).

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