Governance Reform and Lawyer Independence in Canadian Legal Regulation: Examining British Columbia’s Bill 21
Earlier this month, the government of British Columbia introduced Bill 21, the Legal Professions Act. This bill amalgamates the Law Society of British Columbia and the Society of Notaries Public of British Columbia into a new corporation, Legal Professions British Columbia (LPBC), while also creating a licensing and regulation structure for paralegals. It could be the most consequential development in Canadian legal regulation in more than 100 years.
The British Columbia legal profession’s leading organizations (the Law Society, the Canadian Bar Association’s BC branch, and the Trial Lawyers’ Association of BC) strongly oppose Bill 21, with the . . . [more]