The Law Society of Upper Canada and Ontario's Lawyers, 1797-1997 (Heritage) - Hardcover

Moore, Christopher

9780802041272: The Law Society of Upper Canada and Ontario's Lawyers, 1797-1997 (Heritage)

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0802041272 ISBN 13: 9780802041272

Publisher: University of Toronto Press, 1997

At the end of the eighteenth century, when ten lawyers gathered in what is now Niagara-on-the-Lake to form the Law Society of Upper Canada, they were creating something new in the world: a professional organization with statutory authority to control its membership and govern its own affairs. Today's Law Society of Upper Canada, with more than 25,000 members, still wields these powers. Marking the bicentennial of the society's foundation, Christopher Moore's history begins by exploring the unprecedented step taken in 1797 and follows the evolution of lawyers' work and the idea of professional autonomy through two hundred years of growth and change.

The Law Society of Upper Canada and Ontario's Lawyers is a broad-ranging story of the growth and development of the Law Society and the legal profession, from the days when horseback barristers travelled the backwoods by horseback, through the reforms of the late nineteenth century to the period of reaction between the two world wars and the long struggle of women and minorities for access to and equity in the legal profession. Writing in a style that is scholarly as well as entertaining, Moore traces to the present a story rich in personalities, and shows how, after a period of tremendous growth and change, questions of governance, legal aid, and practice insurance triggered a series of crises that rocked the society to its foundations.

This is the first study to be based on full access to the society's two hundred years of historical records. Moore, who has organized his research into themes and periods to illuminate the story, also includes new material on the lives and careers of Ontario lawyers and on the place of the Law Society in professional and public life. Readable and extensively illustrated, The Law Society of Upper Canada and Ontario's Lawyers shows that such issues as professional autonomy and the internal organization, at the forefront of debate at the society's inception, continue to dominiate discussions today.

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From the Back Cover:

In July 1797, ten of the fifteen lawyers in Upper Canada gathered at Wilson's Hotel in Niagara-on-the-Lake to establish the Law Society of Upper Canada. Half of them were under thirty; the youngest was nineteen. The organization they were founding, a professional organization with statutory authority to control its membership and govern its own affairs, had no parallel anywhere else in the common-law world. Christopher Moore, in this history marking the society's bicentenary, begins by examining the unprecedented step taken by those barely qualified lawyers in 1797. He describes the evolution of the Law Society and the legal profession from the days of barristers ranging the backwoods on horseback, through the reforms of the late nineteenth century, the period of reaction between the two world wars, and the tremendous postwar growth in the legal profession, to the long struggle for women and minorities to gain acceptance as lawyers. Taking readers behind the wrought-iron fence and stately lawns of the society's home at Osgoode Hall in Toronto, Moore brings the story right down to the present, describing how, in the 199Os, questions of governance, the problem of legal aid, and the cost of practice insurance triggered a series of crises that have rocked the Law Society to its foundations.

From the Inside Flap:

'The Law Society of Upper Canada and Ontario's Lawyers 1797-1997 has four appendices, a couple so intriguing that I read them first! It is also richly illustrated and footnoted throughout, in a way that enhances the work without distracting the reader. The print is easy to read, and the text is printed on acid-free paper and bound so that the text block lies obligingly open at the page you want. It is a work that should be in every academic law library with a Canadian collection. It is also of interest for a more general readership.'

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