Law Times Canada
Last week, the Federation of Ontario Law Associations (FOLA) accused the FullStop slate – a collection of candidates running to represent lawyers and paralegals in the 2023 Law Society of Ontario Bencher elections – of misrepresenting its record on law-library funding. The slate responded that the charges were misleading and driven by partisanship.
FOLA’s board of directors released the statement on March 15 in response to the news article posted on the FullStop campaign’s website, “A Note About County Law Libraries.” FullStop’s statement denied allegations it said were circulated by a Good Governance Coalition member that the slate was a threat to the law library system due to its support for across-the-board LSO cuts and view that law library funding should be “offloaded” to the Law Foundation of Ontario. FOLA said its subsequent statement was a “clarification” of FullStop’s record.
“Funding for county and district law libraries is an issue at the forefront of the 2023 bencher election campaign,” said FOLA’s board. “This underscores the importance of these vital practice resources to the legal profession. It also underscores the need to elect benchers that recognize that funding for courthouse libraries is central to the mandate of the Law Society of Ontario to ensure its licensees meet high standards of competency and professional conduct and to facilitate access to legal services for people across Ontario.”
