Bencher Murray Klippenstein
About Klippensteins
For decades Klippensteins was a small but growing team of smart and congenial progressive Toronto lawyers committed to access to justice, and calling itself “justice-centred”. See “Our Cases” and our “Practices Areas” for our types of work and some of our successes.
Then, in 2016, a strange kind of disaster struck. The Law Society of Ontario passed a radical requirement that every lawyer, every year, had to declare that they would live by and promote a certain political doctrine. After a year of agonizing, the firm’s principle Murray Klippenstein concluded that he could not practice as a member of a supposedly independent bar if the governing body of his profession was going to force him to annually sign a declaration of ideological commitment – no matter what its content.
KLIPPENSTEIN AWARDS
• “Class Action Team of the Year” – 2021 – Canadian Law Excellence Awards, for Good v. Toronto Police Services Board
• “Top 25 Most Influential Lawyer” – 2015 – Canadian Lawyer Magazine
• “Top 25 Most Influential Lawyer” – 2014 – Canadian Lawyer Magazine
• “Champion of Justice Award” – 2010 – Aboriginal Legal Services of Toronto
• Social Justice Through Law Award – Osgoode Hall Law School – 2006
• Bob Borch Human Rights Award – Ontario Federation of Labour – 2005
Klippenstein re-elected as Law Society Bencher in 2023
Why was an incumbent Bencher re-elected who is suing the Law Society?
You may find it incredible that I as an incumbent Bencher who is actually suing the Law Society was re-elected in 2023. Why?
As a sitting Bencher I launched a lawsuit against the Law Society in 2021 asking the court for an order that the Society produce internal data and records that I believed I needed for my oversight duties as a Bencher and director of the Law Society corporation. The Law Society has the information but won’t give it to me, after many requests. The information involves demonstrated fatal defects in studies purportedly underpinning major ongoing programmes, policies and expenditures that are having serious impacts on our membership.
These include far-reaching Equity, Diversity and Inclusion programmes that the Law Society has been enforcing on 70,000 Ontario licensees, based on statistical studies that claim to show a need for these highly intrusive and politically loaded “interventions”.
The problem is that those studies are full of serious mathematical and statistical errors which are obvious, which negate their conclusions, and which would have been avoided by a second year statistics undergraduate – but the bencher majority and LSO staff don’t want to admit or discuss them.
An example. A planned law firm Inclusion Index would have publicly damaged the reputation of scores of major Ontario firms based on nothing. I repeatedly pointed out its grave statistical flaws until the LSO quietly shelved the Index in June of 2022 – while issuing a press release not admitting that anything was wrong.
The amount of your membership dues being paid to outside consultants on these harmful projects is large.
I was elected the Regional Bencher for Toronto in 2019. I did what I said I would do, and I’m still doing it. I’m a Bencher who cares enough about integrity and transparency in our profession to go to court for it.
You can read my ongoing Superior Court Statement of Claim against the Law Society here, the Law Society’s Defence here.
Read Klippenstein’s court affidavit about LSO’s refusal to provide him with key internal information:
• Abridged and Highlighted Affidavit (15 min read time)
• Full Affidavit with Exhibits
