GENDER AND RACE IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF “LEGAL.pdf

GENDER AND RACE IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF “LEGAL PROFESSIONALISM”: HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES Constance Backhouse1 This is a paper solicited to contribute to a colloquia canvassing issues of “legal professionalism.” When first asked to participate, I was advised that the colloquia had been designed by the Chief Justice of Ontario’s Advisory Committee on Professionalism to “promote professionalism, civility, and a spirit of community and collegiality in the legal profession.”2 The concept of “professionalism” is one that has always caused me a certain degree of hesitation. I think back to the Osgoode Hall classroom in which I sat as a third year law student, decades ago in the mid 1970s, listening to Dean Harry Arthurs lecture on “The Legal Profession.” Try as I might, I could never quite get over my bewilderment that the hallmarks of “professions” apparently included self-regulating codes of conduct, and an ethic of public service. I remember leaning back in my chair, surprise twinned with skepticism, and wondering, as I have more than once in subsequent years, “just whom do they think they are kidding?” So it was with some sense of unease that I asked myself whether I was actually the right person to agree to contribute to the colloquium. While mulling this over, I was out walking with a professor of history who teaches at Carleton University. I told her about the professionalism colloquium and mentioned my hesitation. She retorted, “Professionalism? Professionalism is all about power and exclusion.” I returned home slowly from that walk, pondering the connections between professionalism, power and exclusion. My expertise is within the field of history. And 1 Professor o