Backlash: Women Bullying Women at Work

I wonder why anyone is surprised at this article. Feminists just can't get over themselves and then they find out if they want to compete in the open market for jobs then they have to be as aggressive as men. Its that artificial glass ceiling they say is in the way but dare I disagree and say they need to be as competitive as their rivals, men or women, and have all the requisite abilities. Some choose to not want to go there but its a personal choice not an artificial glass ceiling.MJM



May 10, 2009

By MICKEY MEECE

YELLING, scheming and sabotaging: all are tell-tale signs that a bully is at work, laying traps for employees at every pass.

During this downturn, as stress levels rise, workplace researchers say, bullies are likely to sharpen their elbows and ratchet up their attacks.

It’s probably no surprise that most of these bullies are men, as a survey by the Workplace Bullying Institute, an advocacy group, makes clear. But a good 40 percent of bullies are women. And at least the male bullies take an egalitarian approach, mowing down men and women pretty much in equal measure. The women appear to prefer their own kind, choosing other women as targets more than 70 percent of the time.

In the name of Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem, what is going on here?

Just the mention of women treating other women badly on the job seemingly shakes the women’s movement to its core. It is what Peggy Klaus, an executive coach in Berkeley, Calif., has called “the pink elephant” in the room. How can women break through the glass ceiling if they are ducking verbal blows from other women in cubicles, hallways and conference rooms?

Women don’t like to talk about it because it is “so antithetical to the way that we are supposed to behave to other women,” Ms. Klaus said. “We are supposed to be the nurturers and the supporters.”

Ask women about run-ins with other women at work and some will point out that people of both sexes can misbehave. Others will nod in instant recognition and recount examples of how women — more so than men — have mistreated them.

“I’ve been sabotaged so many times in the workplace by other women, I finally left the corporate world and started my own business,” said Roxy Westphal, who runs the promotional products company Roxy Ventures Inc. in Scottsdale, Ariz. She still recalls the sting of an interview she had with a woman 30 years ago that “turned into a one-person firing squad” and led her to leave the building in tears.

Jean Kondek, who recently retired after a 30-year career in advertising, recalled her anger when an administrator in a small agency called a meeting to dress her down in front of co-workers for not following agency procedure in a client emergency.

But Ms. Kondek said she had the last word. “I said, ‘Would everyone please leave?’ ” She added, “and then I told her, ‘This is not how you handle that.’ ”

Many women who are still in the work force were hesitant to speak out publicly for fear of making matters worse or of jeopardizing their careers. A private accountant in California said she recently joined a company and was immediately frozen out by two women working there. One even pushed her in the cafeteria during an argument, the accountant said. “It’s as if we’re back in high school,” she said.

A senior executive said she had “finally broken the glass ceiling” only to have another woman gun for her job by telling management, “I can’t work for her, she’s passive-aggressive.”

The strategy worked: The executive said she soon lost the job to her accuser.

ONE reason women choose other women as targets “is probably some idea that they can find a less confrontative person or someone less likely to respond to aggression with aggression,” said Gary Namie, research director for the Workplace Bullying Institute, which ordered the study in 2007.

But another dynamic may be at work. After five decades of striving for equality, women make up more than 50 percent of management, professional and related occupations, says Catalyst, the nonprofit research group. And yet, its 2008 census found, only 15.7 percent of Fortune 500 officers and 15.2 percent of directors were women.

Leadership specialists wonder, are women being “overly aggressive” because there are too few opportunities for advancement? Or is it stereotyping and women are only perceived as being overly aggressive? Is there a double standard at work?

Research on gender stereotyping from Catalyst suggests that no matter how women choose to lead, they are perceived as “never just right.” What’s more, the group found, women must work twice as hard as men to achieve the same level of recognition and prove they can lead.

“If women business leaders act consistent with gender stereotypes, they are considered too soft,” the group found in a 2007 study. “If they go against gender stereotypes, they are considered too tough.”

“Women are trying to figure out the magical keys to the kingdom,” said Laura Steck, president of the Growth and Leadership Center in Sunnyvale, Calif., and an executive leadership coach.

Women feel they have to be aggressive to be promoted, she said, and then they keep it up. Then, suddenly, they see the need to be collegial and collaborative instead of competitive.

Cleo Lepori-Costello, a vice president at a Silicon Valley software company, came to the center for training. She got off to a bumpy start when she stormed into her new role “like a bull in a china shop,” Ms. Steck said.

In gathering feedback about Ms. Lepori-Costello, Ms. Steck heard comments like: “Cleo is good at getting things done but may have come on too strong in the beginning. She didn’t read the different cultural unspoken rules like she could have.”

So Ms. Steck and Kent Kaufman, another coach at the center, began a one-year, once-a-week individual coaching program. It included role-playing and monthly group discussions with other female executives who acknowledged that they also had major blind spots about being politic at work. (The group was once nicknamed the Bully Broads.)

When she came to the center, Ms. Lepori-Costello said, she thought her colleagues were not initially open to her ideas. Through coaching and conflict role-playing, she came to realize that her behavior was perhaps “too much overkill” and that she was not always attending to all the people around her.

Joel H. Neuman, a researcher at the State University of New York at New Paltz, says most aggressive behavior at work is influenced by a number of factors associated with the bullies, victims and the situations in which they work. “This would include issues related to frustration, personality traits, perceptions of unfair treatment, and an assortment of stresses and strains associated with today’s leaner and ‘meaner’ work settings,” he said.

Mr. Neuman and his colleague Loraleigh Keashly of Wayne State University have developed a questionnaire to identify the full range of behaviors that can constitute bullying, which could help companies uncover problems that largely go unreported.

Bullying involves verbal or psychological forms of aggressive (hostile) behavior that persists for six months or longer. Their 29 questions include: Over the last 12 months, have you regularly: been glared at in a hostile manner, been given the silent treatment, been treated in a rude or disrespectful manner, or had others fail to deny false rumors about you?

The Workplace Bullying Institute says that 37 percent of workers have been bullied. Yet many employers ignore the problem, which hits the bottom line in turnover, health care and productivity costs, the institute says. Litigation is rare, the institute says, because there is no directly applicable law to cite and the costs are high.

Two Canadian researchers recently set out to examine the bullying that pits women against women. They found that some women may sabotage one another because they feel that helping their female co-workers could jeopardize their own careers.

One of the researchers, Grace Lau, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Waterloo, said the goal was to encourage women to help one another. She said: “How? One way we predicted would be to remind women that they are members of the same group.”

“We believe that a sense of pride in women’s accomplishments is important in getting women to help one another,” Ms. Lau said. “To have this sense of pride, women need to be aware of their shared identity as women.”

In the workplace, however, it is unlikely that women will constantly think of themselves as members of one group, she said. They will more likely see themselves as individuals, as they are judged by their performance.

“As a result, women may not feel a need to help one another,” she said. “They may even feel that in order to get ahead, they need to bully their co-workers by withholding information like promotion opportunities, and that women are easier to bully than men because women are supposedly less tough than men.”

WHAT better place to be a bully than in a prison? Even so, that is exactly where Televerde, a company in Phoenix that specializes in generating sales leads and market insight for high-tech companies, set up shop. About 13 years ago, the company created four call centers in the Arizona state prison in Perryville, employing 250 inmates (out of 3,000).

Through immersion training, mentoring and working with real-world clients, these women can overcome their difficult circumstances, said Donna Kent, senior vice president at Televerde. “Often, they will win over bullies and we see the whole thing transform. That’s what gives us inspiration and our clients inspiration.”

TODAY, about half of Televerde’s corporate office is made up of “graduates” from Perryville, including Michelle Cirocco, the director of sales operations. She has seen how women treat one another in other settings and she thinks the root cause is that women are taught to fight with one another for attention at an early age.

“We’re competing with our sisters for dad’s attention, or for our brother’s attention,” Ms. Cirocco said. “And then we go on in school and we’re competing for our teachers’ attention. We’re competing to be on the sports team or the cheer squad.”

To be sure, the Televerde experience is not for every inmate, and those who are in it still must work hard to maintain a highly competitive position.

“As we get into the corporate world,” Ms. Cirocco added, “we’re taught or we’re led to believe that we don’t get ahead because of men. But, we really don’t get ahead because of ourselves. Instead of building each other up and showcasing each other, we’re constantly tearing each other down.”

Televerde reversed that attitude in Perryville, Ms. Cirocco said, by encouraging women to work for a common cause, much like the environment envisioned by the Canadian researchers.

“It becomes a very nurturing environment,” Ms. Cirocco said. “You have all these women who become your friends, and you are personally invested in their success. Everyone wants everyone to get out, to go on to have a good healthy life.”

If the level of support found at Televerde were found elsewhere, Ms. Klaus said, it would solve a lot of problems.

“The time has come,” she said, “for us to really deal with this relationship that women have to women, because it truly is preventing us from being as successful in the workplace as we want to be and should be.

“We’ve got enough obstacles; we don’t need to pile on any more.

Judge Judy Tells False Accuser: "You Didn't Play Fair!"

RADAR ALERT:

Judge Judy Tells False Accuser: "You Didn't Play Fair!"

The Honorable Judith Sheindlin has made it clear that the no-nonsense judge will not tolerate the manipulation of the judicial system by litigants who try to use restraining orders and false allegations of domestic violence to their advantage.

During the April 30, 2009 episode of Judge Judy, Her Honor told her audience of 10 million people that the female defendant was not about to "put one over" on her. "That's how well I know your game," she told the defendant. "... you may get over on a judge tomorrow, but you're not getting over on me today ... I am going to tell you what you did wrong ... you didn't play fair!"

This episode can be viewed at YouTube in two parts. Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xPk07BK3qA and part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRNLPn6gyZo.

Judge Judy is viewed by 10 million people daily. That is a quick and efficient way to spread the word to the masses that the this type of abuse should not and will not be tolerated.

Contact the producers of Judge Judy and let them know how important cases such as the one above really are by going to http://www.judgejudy.com/your_opinions.php.

Then contact your local legislator and let them know that even Judge Judy and her audience of 10 million people are aware that false allegations of domestic violence and the overt abuse of restraining orders are "not fair."

As always, please remember to be polite.

To find your Representative's contact information go to http://www.house.gov and enter your zip code in the upper left corner.

---

Date of RADAR Release: May 11, 2009

R.A.D.A.R. – Respecting Accuracy in Domestic Abuse Reporting – is a non-profit, non-partisan organization of men and women working to improve the effectiveness of our nation's approach to solving domestic violence. http://www.mediaradar.org.

YouTube - Videos from this email




Part 2

The Evolution of Feminisim from equality to collectivism

The modern feminist movement seems to also have roots in the following conclusions excerpted from a Lorrie Goldstein column in the Toronto Sun Today. He is speaking more about the current crop of incompetent Minister's in the McGuinty (L)Fiberal Government in Ontario but the parallels with gender feminism match. In the case of the gender feminists they believe they are a permanent underclass of victims. They require the nanny state to protect them. This is their new "daddy". Liberals are only too glad to comply.

"The Liberal Mind -- The Psychological Causes of Political Madness -- by Dr. Lyle H. Rossiter, Jr., an MD and general and forensic psychiatrist, who has testified as an expert in thousands of American civil and criminal cases.

Rossiter argues modern liberalism leads to political madness, because it seeks to override the individual's psychological need for freedom, in the name of social engineering.

As Rossiter diagnoses it: "This bias is destructive to the ideals of liberty and social order and to the growth of the individual to adult competence.

"Instead of promoting a rational society of competent adults who solve the problems of living through voluntary co-operation, the modern liberal agenda creates an irrational society of child-like adults who depend upon governments to take care of them. In its ongoing efforts to collectivize society's basic economic, social and political processes, the liberal agenda undermines the character traits essential for individual liberty, material security, voluntary co-operation and social order."

Sound like anyone we know?"

LORRIE.GOLDSTEIN@SUNMEDIA.CA

http://www.torontosun.com/comment/columnists/lorrie_goldstein/2009/05/10/9410256-sun.html

Two bills before state legislators would make child custody in Nebraska a 50-50 split

My comments left on site: http://www.nebraska.tv/global/story.asp?S=10171499

@ Jo: MOST (85-90%) couples decide parenting plans themselves.

The ones that go to FAMILY COURT overwhelmingly have CONFLICT, DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, CHILD ABUSE.

______________________________________________________________________
This is patent rubbish but is boilerplate used by misandrist gender feminists and the acolytes working in the DV Industry. Most men have a metaphorical gun put to their head by lawyers saying agree to 14% visitation - its the "Gold Standard" - and cut your losses - the judge is going to give custody to the mom! Those that do go to court are usually brought by loving fathers who end up spending thousands of dollars because a non-co-operative and often vindictive ex doesn't want to share the children with one half of their genetic heritage.

The sites referred to cherry pick information and none of the information provided will withstand peer review. In a word they are biased.

Putting children in single mother households has led to a great deal of social problems in addition to it being more dangerous in terms of child killing and abuse. Check here. http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/stats_research/index.htm

State Child Custody Law: 50-50 Split? Posted: April 13, 2009 12:06 AM Updated: April 19, 2009 11:22 PM Kevin Yoachim of Hebrom spent Easter Sunday dinner with his two kids, both teens. But now, in the midst of divorce, he worries those dinners will be few and far in between. "A lot of my friends have told me, you're going to have a really hard time getting custody," he said. Two bills before state legislators would make child custody in Nebraska a 50-50 split, with some restrictions. LB423 would mandate a presumption that both parents are fit for joint legal and physical custody unless evidence proves otherwise. LB589 states both parents should get equal custody unless there is a medical or legal reason why this should not happen. The bills went before the Judiciary Committee on March 25th. Attorney Chris Johnson of Hastings testified in support of the bills. Johnson is Yoachim's attorney and said the bills would change how the divorce process begins. Johnson said currently, it's a game of who's the better parent. "You have to fight, you have to fight, or you're regulated to very little amount of time with probably the most important thing you have in your life," he said. Johnson said parents won't fight, at least not as much, if the law gives them 50-50 custody, presuming they're equally fit to parent. "Instead of this immediate inquiry as to who's the better parent, the immediate inquiry is 'why can't we share?"' he said. "It won't work in all cases, that we know, there's cases where mom and dad hate each other, but where you have two good parents, active parents, it can work," he said. There's a few catches. The parents would have to live in the same city and the same school district, Johnson said. No problem for Yoachim. He moved out of the house but made sure he was still in the same neighborhood as his ex. "It does bother me that Courtney spends 70% of her time at her mom's house, when I live two blocks away," he said. Yet Grand Island attorney Galen Stehlik said expecting estranged partners, even on good terms, to agree to a 50-50 split, isn't reality. "This seems to imply the law is going to create an even playing field," he said. "A lot of times people get a divorce because they can't agree on issues dealing with their children." He said the children's interest has always been the state's goal. "It's been a part of our statute since 1974, why keep changing it?" He said even if the measures pass, the legal system would still have to do its job and figure out what's best for the child. "You still have to present the evidence, get into court and convince the judge of what is in the best interest of the child. Where would that child be best placed, with mom or dad?" Both Johnson and Stehlik argue money is a factor, too. Johnson said single parents don't have thousands of dollars to spend on legal fees, and if they can agree on sharing their children at the beginning, they could save money. Stehlik argues parents would spend more money on mediation to find common ground before the court process started. Johnson argues this system creates harder feelings between the parents, which trickles down to their children. "It poisons that relationship and hurts the kids for years and years to come," he said. "The fighting goes on forever and ever and doesn't stop when the kids turn 19." Yoachim said the current system is why he waited until his kids were older, to finally seperate from his wife. "That was the reason I stayed five years, so I could see the kids grow up," he said. Reporter's Notes: Stacia Kalinoski LB589's author, Sen. Cap Dierks of Ewing, told me these bills need a lot more support to advance, and it wouldn't be this year. He said the issue has come up before, and the latest bill in 2007 never made it out of committee. Johnson said the topic will keep coming up. He said the issue is becoming a priority with father's rights groups.

DADS ON THE AIR ~ MAY 11-12/09

DADS ON THE AIR

www.dadsontheair.net

Local Sydney Time: 10.30am to 12 midday Tuesday 12th May 2009
USA Eastern time: 8.30pm to 10pm Monday 11th May 2009
USA Pacific time: 5.30pm to 7pm Monday 11th May 2009
UK GMT time: 12.30am to 2am Monday night (Tuesday morning) 12th May 2009

2GLF FM 89.3 in Sydney
and ONLINE via live streaming at http://www.893fm.com.au
or in MP3 format at http://www.dadsontheair.net

MEN UNDER LABOR

With Special Guests:

• John Flanagan

• George Potkonvak

• Geoffrey Green

  Phil York

  Democracy has failed the nation's fathers. Issues of concern to dads, including men's health, long and unreasonable work hours, poor pay, family law, child support and a host of other issues are never or rarely ever addressed by our politicians. The electoral success of leftwing governments hostage to feminist lobby groups in America,
  Australia and the UK has simply made the situation worse. Corrupt and unaccountable systems thrive in secrecy while the nation's politicians look the other way.

In Australia there are serious concerns that even the modest reforms introduced by the previous government aimed at creating at least an element of fairness into family law are about to be wiped away. Extreme male bashing taxpayer funded women's groups are mounting a
spirited campaign to return the world to the dark ages when most fathers caught up in family law never or rarely ever saw their children again.

This week Dads On The Air, which began with a group of separated blokes damaged by and brave enough to raise a voice against the overwhelming anti-father bias of Australia's family law system, returns to its roots. We talk with John Flanagan from the Equal Parenting Party, George Potkonyak a solicitor dealing with family law and child support issues, Phil York from Dads In Distress and Geoffrey Greene from the Shared Parenting Council of Australia.

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has made great play out of his devotion to feminist causes, ignoring the many issues which affect his own gender. He is following the example of his hero Barak Obama, who as made sure feminist causes are a major plank of his government's operations. Many critics believe that as a result of this abject devotion to fashionable ideologies the situation for many fathers is getting worse under both leaders.

Bettina Arndt wrote prophetically two years ago: "IS Kevin Rudd interested in men? The answer, sadly, seems to be no. Unlike John Howard, the Opposition Leader rarely talks about issues affecting many of his own gender, such as family law, child support, fatherless families, boys' education. Indeed, this potential prime minister seems content to hand over the running on most social issues to female colleagues renowned for their anti-male bias. For anyone keen to
ensure men and boys receive a fair go, the prospect of a Labor government is all bad news."

In this atmosphere the Labor government is expanding the power of the Family Court and the domestic violence industry while ignoring the social consequences of both.

Astonishingly, Chief Justice of the Family Court Diana Bryant has come out recently saying the court cannot be held responsible for the death of a four year old girl thrown off a bridge by her father, pre-empting the inquest and the court case. This is a man who's entire life was being consumed by the consummate bastardy of the court and the lawyers infesting it; a man who's every waking moment was no doubt preoccupied with how best he could deal with the onerous demands of fighting a custody battle at the same time as being financially ransacked and
holding down a job. And he cracked. Yet the court is now desperately trying to wash their hands of the case. Give it a break!

The Chief Justice has also found herself under attack after announcing that she had written to the Attorney General asking that penalties introduced into the Family Law Act be repealed. The Family Court is not known as The Palace of Lies for nothing.

Geoffrey Green, a spokesman for The Shared Parenting Council of Australia, will be discussing their media release on the subject. It read in part:

“Recent media reports that the Chief Justice of the Family Court, Diana Bryant, has called upon the Attorney-General to give "urgent consideration" to repealing one of the most fundamental protections in the recent Family Law Act amendments is almost without precedent and a
recipe for wholesale failure in the integrity and operation of the Family Court System.

"The Chief Justice's call to repeal amendments to the Family Law Act in relation to awarding of costs against the party that maliciously raises untrue allegations of violence or makes untrue denials, will re-open the floodgates to increased perjury, false allegations and flies in the face of findings by two parliamentary enquiries, and natural justice - with an end result diametrically opposed to a child's best interest", Ed Dabrowski, Federal Director of the Shared Parenting Council said today.

"Without any supporting evidence, that there is in fact any harm at all being created by these reasonable and well accepted amendments in the 2006 legislation, the Chief Justice has engaged in a media campaign to undo one of the fundamental protections available to any
litigant, anywhere in any other law jurisdiction in the world", Mr Dabrowski said.

"Surely, the Chief Justice couldn't be condoning the re-establishment of a 'penalty free' process for one parent to make false and malicious allegations against the other - this defies every process of law in the Westminster system. If any amendment would be required, it should
be to ensure that perjury is punished by criminal sanction, not the repealing of research based amendments made just some three years ago", Mr Dabrowski said.

The Shared Parenting Council of Australia maintains that such a retrograde step would encourage a wholesale rise in mischievous allegations made in Court and to Child Protective Services. It would increase the frequency and severity of false statements including
false allegations of abuse and violence against parents and grandparents simply seeking to continue parenting their children after separation and divorce.

The Shared Parenting Council of Australia receives many complaints from parents where the Court's 'cautionary' approach to allegations resulted in impaired or total loss of contact without the allegations ever being proved or even investigated. Mr Dabrowski lamented; "legally unimpeachable parents were being treated like criminals and easily lose their children, without due process, at the discretion of judges."

He said, "Diana Bryant is in effect saying that the most hostile parent ought to have the power to veto the other parent's involvement, no matter what. She is advocating the law change to grant permission for one of the litigants to come in with fabricated or at best flimsy allegations which would veto the child's best interest, to veto shared parenting, a remedy that fosters the best interests of children and is otherwise encouraged by the law.

"The new legislation in 2006 was designed specifically to ensure that children did not lose all contact with one parent and to ensure both parents understood their responsibilities in parenting after separation. Any watering down of the section relating to a "willingness of each child's parents to facilitate and encourage a close and continuing relationship between the child and the other parent", will be vigorously opposed.”

Under the Australian Constitution, there are supposed to be three sources of power in Australia – the legislature, the executive and the judiciary. Each one is held to account by checks and balances of the other. However John Flanagan maintains that a fourth power has developed in Australia – the Bureaucracy. This Bureaucracy is elected by no one. In practice, John Flanagan maintains that it is also accountable to no one.

The decisions of the Bureaucracy are based on what they believe are in the “best interests” of Australia and Australians. At the same time, these decisions are not based on consultation with the people who actually live in this country.

For example, these bureaucrats believe that it is in the “best interests” of Australians that the taxpayer should not be responsible for the costs of bringing up children from separated parents. This goal is to be commended. However the solution that has been adopted has had disastrous results.

The bureaucrat’s solution was the implementation of the Child Support Scheme. The approach was simple - forcibly extract money from one parent and give it to the other parent. It does not work. It is directly implicated in the deaths of numerous separated fathers who have been bullied and harassed by heartless CSA bureaucrats into an early grave.

An alternative approach, namely, the adoption of equal-time shared parenting was not on the agenda. This seems to be backed up by recent media comments made by the Chief Justice of the Family Court, Diana Bryant.

Policy decisions are made by bureaucrats within the Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (FaHCSIA). These decisions are then virtually rubber stamped by the Parliament as legislation.

Child support decisions are made by a FaHCSIA group called the “Child Support Policy Unit”. This unit is located on the 6th Floor of Juliana House in Woden. ACT.

The only way we can overcome this problem is for our politicians to significantly reduce the size and influence of the fourth arm of Government – the Bureaucracy.

John Flanagan says that the Question for voters at the next Federal Election will be: “Do we want to have a small group of so-called elite intellectuals control our lives or do we believe that we can plan our lives ourselves?”

George Potkonyak is a solicitor who will discuss some of his concerns with current family law and child support legislation.

FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT DADS ON THE AIR, CLICK HERE.

Law societies under fire

Macleans.ca

Canada’s only national weekly current affairs magazine.

Apr 30, 2009 by Kate Lunau

Cora MacPhail doesn’t dislike lawyers. She has close friends who are lawyers; family members, too. MacPhail considers the law to be an honourable profession. Which helps explain why her dealings with the Law Society of Upper Canada (LSUC) left her shaken.

In 2006, MacPhail was confined to a wheelchair for eight weeks following ankle surgery. The retiree, who lives alone in London, Ont., asked for help at home from a local care centre, but due to a mix-up, was at first denied (the centre later apologized, and provided her with services including a personal care worker). MacPhail’s son fired off a letter of complaint to the local MPP, and copied it to the centre; days later, the elderly woman got a knock on her door. It was the care centre’s “director of quality and contracted service delivery,” who questioned her and her son about the letter, she says. The meeting left her feeling uneasy. Weeks later, her son typed the care centre employee’s name into Google and discovered he was a lawyer, not a social worker, as they had believed. On Dec. 4, 2006, MacPhail filed a complaint with the LSUC, which regulates Ontario’s lawyers and paralegals. “He did not disclose who he was—a lawyer,” she wrote in her letter. “I trust you will take action.”

MacPhail, who was hoping for an apology, figured it would be an open-and-shut case. In fact, the process dragged on for almost two years. Her complaint was at first dismissed; when she requested an independent review, it bounced back to the law society instead, where it was rejected again. MacPhail appealed to a higher power, the complaints resolution commissioner, who is funded by the law society to conduct impartial reviews of their investigations. Then she learned the commissioner had a conflict of interest and had to withdraw. When her complaint was finally reviewed, the commissioner’s delegate found in MacPhail’s favour, asking the law society to reconsider. It did—and rejected her complaint a third and final time, deciding the man was not working in his capacity as a lawyer at the time of the visit. (For confidentiality reasons, the LSUC declined to comment on the case.)

MacPhail’s story is just one small example of what critics call a fundamental problem with the way the Canadian legal profession is regulated. Law societies, the regulatory bodies to which every practising lawyer must belong, have the authority to investigate and discipline their own members. But if you feel you’ve been bamboozled by a lawyer, complaining to his or her membership group can quickly undermine faith in the system. A bright, vivacious woman, MacPhail becomes visibly deflated when discussing her case. “It makes you feel very powerless,” she says. “They’re all such pals.”

In other countries, concerns like MacPhail’s have become an impetus for change. In England and Australia, for example, law societies are having some powers stripped away, and independent bodies have sprung up to deal with complaints. Among the Commonwealth countries, Canada’s system of lawyer discipline is fast becoming the exception instead of the rule. “People think it’s Caesar judging Caesar, when it’s the legal profession [handling complaints] itself,” says Steve Mark, legal services commissioner for Australia’s largest state, New South Wales.

In England and Wales, a new law came into effect in 2007 aimed at taking power away from lawyers and putting it in consumers’ hands. The profession’s self-regulating bodies, like the Bar Council and Law Society of England and Wales (which represent barristers and solicitors, respectively), no longer have free rein: the Legal Services Act created an independent body, chaired by a non-lawyer, to watch over them. The complaints process has also been revamped. Instead of seeking redress from the law society or bar council, members of the public will soon be able to go directly to the independent Office for Legal Complaints (OLC). Having a separate body perform this function is crucial to bolster public confidence, says Mary Seneviratne, director of research at Nottingham Law School and one of the OLC’s recently appointed members.

England isn’t the first to move away from pure lawyer self-regulation. In Australia, most states have an independent legal services commissioner to handle complaints. Steve Mark has been in the role in New South Wales since 1994; his office has proved so successful it’s served as a model elsewhere, including in England. As the “sole port of call” for complainants, he can decide whether to handle them in his office (about three-quarters of complaints stay with him), or refer them to the law society or the New South Wales Bar Association. “As an independent body, I can advocate for the consumer and not seem to have a vested interest,” Mark says. And when he chooses to dismiss a complaint, he adds, “it’s not assumed I’m trying to protect the profession.”

In both England and Australia, it wasn’t just bad optics that brought about change; law societies’ track records at investigating complaints were notoriously awful. Prior to reform, Zahida Manzoor, a non-lawyer who serves as legal services ombudsman and legal services complaints commissioner for England and Wales, issued a series of scathing reports criticizing the law society’s complaints-handling arm for being slow, poorly run and providing bad service. When it failed to submit adequate plans to improve, she imposed a hefty fine. “It wasn’t just a problem of perception; they were performing badly,” Manzoor says. In the Australian state of Queensland, where lawyer self-regulation came to an end in 2004, legal ombudsman Jack Nimmo concluded the lawyers’ complaints-handling body was “nothing but a post office box” that forwarded complaints to the lawyer in question, then sent the response back to the complainant.

Canadian law societies don’t have the same problems, argues Stéphane Rivard, a Montreal lawyer and president of the Federation of Law Societies of Canada, an umbrella for the 14 provincial and territorial bodies (Quebec has two). “What triggers government intervention is when you have a lack of rigour [in regulating the profession and investigating complaints],” he says. “That’s not the case here.”

That, however, is up for debate. Canada hasn’t seen reforms comparable to those abroad, but “I’m skeptical it’s because lawyer self-regulation works here,” says Alice Woolley, an associate professor with the University of Calgary’s faculty of law. “There’s been insufficient scrutiny to assess that.” Unlike Australia or England, Canada has no independent legal ombudsman; members of the public must appeal to a law society-funded commissioner. And while the Law Society of England and Wales was criticized for receiving one complaint for every six of its members, turns out the Law Society of Upper Canada, the largest in the country, doesn’t have a much better record. In 2007, the LSUC had 38,879 lawyer members, and got 6,157 complaints, a ratio roughly equal to its English counterpart.

Philip Slayton is a former Bay Street lawyer and author of Lawyers Gone Bad: Money, Sex and Madness in Canada’s Legal Profession. He calls the disciplinary record of our law societies a “patchwork quilt” that varies from province to province, and even from one case to another. “I think the idea of a law society disciplining its own members is contrary to the basic principles of justice,” he says. Beyond that, “they’ve done a bad job.”

Take the case of former Law Society of Upper Canada treasurer George Hunter, which Slayton discusses in his book. In 2004, Hunter sat on a law society panel that for the first time disbarred a lawyer for sexually harassing a client (the disbarment was later overturned on appeal). In 2007, after Hunter admitted he himself had engaged in a relationship with a client—one of three extramarital affairs he’d been juggling—the prominent lawyer found himself back before the panel, this time on the opposite end.

Hunter’s former client was not at the hearing, but her impact statement told of depression, anxiety and a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder, the Lawyers Weekly reported. Hunter’s counsel presented the panel with a stack of 27 “glowing reference letters” on his behalf, many of them penned by prominent benchers (members of the law society’s governing board). “Spectators remarked on the irony of benchers urging three fellow benchers to mete out the mildest possible sentence to a former bencher guilty of conflict of interest,” the lawyers’ newspaper reports. Hunter was suspended from practice for 60 days.

Whether it creates a conflict of interest when law societies investigate their members is “open to question,” says Paul Paton, vice-chair of the Canadian Bar Association’s national ethics and professional issues committee, and associate professor at the University of the Pacific’s McGeorge School of Law. But, he adds, “a perceived conflict of interest is often equal, in the public mind, to an actual one.” Most dangerously, that perception can put people off from complaining at all. In one British survey, 81 per cent of people who’d used a solicitor in the previous three years said they’d rather complain to an independent body; if it had to be to another lawyer, 52 per cent wouldn’t complain at all.

It’s unfortunate, says Manzoor, the legal services ombudsman for England and Wales, because a lack of public confidence can undermine the entire legal system. “We’re talking about the rule of law. We’re talking about access to justice,” says Manzoor, who supports independent complaints resolution. “It’s not ‘lawyer knows best’; it’s a service that’s being provided,” she says. “We’ve got to make sure it’s of the highest standard, because it affects the public in such a way.”

Yet, unlike in Australia or England, the Canadian public—and its elected officials—have been surprisingly mute on the subject of legal reform. MacPhail can’t help but wonder whether meek acceptance is part of our culture. “I can recall going to a movie once,” she says. “The lights went out, but the movie didn’t start. Everybody just sat there.” After sitting quietly in the dark for several minutes, waiting in vain for the movie to begin, she says, “we finally got up and told someone.”

With so many Canadians losing faith in the justice system—or feeling shut out of it entirely—change seems inevitable. Legal reforms abroad were intended to empower the public, instead of lawyers; in England and Australia, “change came for good reasons,” Woolley says. “Those reasons exist here.”

Before widespread reform can happen in Canada, though, Paton suggests that public confidence in our legal system might have to hit an all-time low. “I think it will take one more scandal,” he says.

Jerry Dykman says:

Apr 30, 2009 at 10:55 pm

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I am rather amused that your magazine would advocate setting up
yet another commission to deal with complaints against lawyers.
This after a long series of articles calling for the abolition of provincial
Human Rights Commissions across Canada. This would, by the same
token, call for an independent Police Commision, an independent
College of Physicians and Surgeons, Dentists, Accountants, Engineers,
Chiropractors, Land Surveyors, Architects, or just about any one who
charges for a service. How about hookers and teacup readers?
You name it, someone will complain about it. As a lawyer with 36 years
good standing, I’d like to complain to a commission to rule on clients who tell
only half their story before going to court, don’t show up for court, and who pay
their retainer with an NSF cheque; or a client who will grossly misrepresent the
complexity and length of time required for the work to be done.
Then there are the fraudsters and thieves who try to access a lawyer’s trust
funds with counterfeit money orders, or obtain a mortgage disbursment on
property they do not own.
Once the legal profession loses its independence from government,
good luck finding a lawyer to safeguard your civil rights.

Reply

I.M.K. says:

May 3, 2009 at 1:11 am

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I have the same problem… however I was given a deadline to hand in my complaints…. turns out the original complaint was from over 20 years ago…. and even after court judgement was passed, the law society still ahs not taken action.

What is the proper course of duty in this case???

Lobbying the public.!?

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Julianna says:

May 4, 2009 at 10:10 pm

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Oh boo hoo lawyers know their stuff they went to school they can do what they want.

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Mike Murphy says:

May 6, 2009 at 10:37 pm

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I think its pretty clear Lawyers are thought of as not overly ethical, greedy (I can certainly justify my $600.00 per hour fees says one) and in Family Law are thought of as living off the avails of family destruction. There is room for them to go lower though. It seems like Jerry Dykman is a lawyer or an apologist for them. We have lawyers with their hands in the pockets of our children’s legacies and supporting a dysfunctional Family Law (FLAW) system that allows moms to have physical custody of children in almost a 9-1 ratio, and they have no trouble marginalizing fathers to 14% visitors, if that. They are part and parcel along with their colleagues the judges in gender apartheid reducing fathers to mere wallets and visitors. When you confront them with this they say “that’s the way the system is” as though they are victims too. What BS! If ever a profession needed independent regulation this is it. Don’t worry about the Dykman “red herring” by throwing out all the other professional bodies as “bait” to sidetrack the issue. Its a canard. Canada lags way behind Australia, particularly in FLAW and needs to move forward. Trouble is though a goodly number of the members of legislatures and the Federal Parliament are also lawyers covering their backs. Interesting isn’t it.

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• Jerry Dykman says:

  May 7, 2009 at 10:34 am

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  Please, Mike Murphy, do not argue about gender apartheid when the enrollment in law schools since the 1980’s has been gender balanced, as it is becoming so in many other professions. I have attended many a court docket where the judge and the lawyer for each side were all women.
  Raising children is a stressful and demanding vocation, and most mothers and grandmothers traditionally and biologically are seen to be better equipped to put up with the constant needs and wants of toddlers. When it comes to custody arrangements, I believe fathers are better suited to backstop defiant male teenagers. However, by that age, most children decide on the parent with whom they wish to “crash”. I agree that enforcement of visitation rights could be as draconian as child support enforcement. The paying spouse has the payments deducted from his or her paycheque and driver’s licence suspended for failing to pay voluntarily. A custodial spouse should suffer the same kind if treatment in denying court-ordered visits or part time custody for reasons of inconvenience, jealousy, or spite.
  Society evolves, and the rules of law evolve with it, usually about twenty years later. Society wants musical-chair marriages and live-in unions? Deal with the consequences, and do not expect police, social workers, crisis centres, doctors, lawyers and judges to work themselves into an early grave or beyond their job descriptions.
  Show me a functional family and I will show you a burial plot.

  Reply
  • Mike Murphy says:

    May 7, 2009 at 2:16 pm

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    Mr. Dykman: I will quote you in my book. You have single handedly stated all that is wrong with the thought process of those responsible for the dysfunctional system of FLAW and you have also managed to insult both loving fathers (I was a stay at home dad) and the gender feminists who believe there is no such thing as gender based roles based on biology.

    You live in a nether world clearly displaying the laziness of the current crop of family lawyers and judges while those of us who seek change watch in wonder but who will get the changes we think are appropriate for the 21st century father in the next few years with or without your help.
    
    
    

    Jerry Dykman says:

    May 9, 2009 at 8:59 am

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    I stand by my position. If you want change, donate or work for the abolition
    of the traffic of children in the sex trade all around the world. I would love to
    be quoted in your book. Found a publisher?

  • Chantelle LaMarch says:

    May 11, 2009 at 8:28 pm

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    Jerry Dykman is your classic lawyer who will safeguard our civil rights. Like most lawyers, he is a legend in his own mind. As a matter of fact, lawyers do not safeguard civil rights; they remove them, as history has shown us. This explains the rise in lawyers in modern society. No lawyer has safeguard civil rights as ordinary people in this country or any other country have! Lawyers are cultural vultures who feed off the flesh of people’s misery. You can see them in family courts picking up the wounds of others and pricing them like precious dinosaur bones. Society may evolve, but lawyers don’t. They are not even part of the evolution!

    Lastly, the traffic of children in the sex trade all around the world is a service that is also used by wealthy lawyers, according to a police friend of mine. I bet that most of these children come from broken homes. Thanks to family court judges and lawyers who do not produce any goods or services or add any value or improvement to quality of life of children. Simply put: “Lawyers are political pork”.

    
    
    

    1. Mike Murphy says:

       May 9, 2009 at 10:36 pm

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       The discussion was about lawyers, about the self governance of same and its impotence, and in my comments the gender apartheid practiced by judges in collaboration with lawyers – and you appear to be one of them – in giving custody to mothers in a 9-1 ratio. Stay on topic Mr. Dykman. I’m focused on changes to FLAW and the marginalization of fathers. You do want you want in other areas. You’ve got the bucks.

       Reply
    2. Demand Lustration says:

       May 10, 2009 at 1:29 am

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       Bravo Mike Murphy! Bravo I.M.K. !
       Ignore amateur wonna be Tavistock PsyWar Pupil ‘Jerry Dykman’ …

       Mike, I.M.K. – we need not to wait “… next few years …”, we already have IN PLACE several very high-profile actions directly against:

       - Law Society of Upper Canada (LSUC)

       - Mr. Mr. Christopher Bentley, The Guardian of the Public Interest in All Matters Regarding the LSUC Act and the LSUC. LSA, s. 13 (1)

       - so called ‘Judiciary’:
       Ontario appointed ones: Ontario Court of Justice (OCJ) and its corresponding Ontario Judicial Council (OJC)

       Federally appointed ones: Superior Court of Justice (SCJ), Court of Appeal for Ontario (CAO),
       Canadian Judicial Council (CJC), “National Judicial Institute” (NJI),
       Abella, Charron at SCC,
       and, of course, “The Queen Beverly” …

       just join and get more details at :
       demand.resignations.lustration@gmail.com

       In the meantime, one analysis here:

       =========================

       Ontario has more lawyers than it has medical doctors.

       “In 2007, the LSUC had 38,879 lawyer members,”
       and
       Ontario had a population of less than 13 million people.

       That works out to one lawyer per less than 500 people.

       Ontario workforce is about 6.5 million people (2006 Census) so we have one lawyer per less than 250 working people.

       Total number of people in Ontario with University diploma is 118000 (2006 Census) so lawyers represent one third of all people with University education in Ontario.

       Mid range salary for a lawyer on Ontario government payroll is about 180000.00 dollars a year so it is safe to assume that lawyers in Ontario earn on average 140000.00 dollars a year.

       See: http://www.lawyersweekly.ca/index.php?section=article&articleid=263

       Lawyers do not produce any goods or services that add any value or improvement to quality of life in Ontario but they cost every working Ontarian 560.00 dollars a year to pay lawyers salaries.

       It cost every working Ontarian another 1000.00 dollars or more a year to pay for offices, office staff and office supply, of every lawyer operating in Ontario.

       It is no small wonder that Ontario economy is going bust with so much of totally unproductive luggage that it has to drag along.

       Reply
    3. Earl Shuman says:

       May 10, 2009 at 10:36 am

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       The day before Kate Lunau’s April 30th article appeared in Macleans, I gave a twenty minute speech at Ontario’s legislative building in Queen’s Park in Toronto calling for legislation to end self-governence of lawyers in Ontario. As justification for that, I tried to explain how lawyers are gaming the Ontario justice system under the guise of consumer protection legislation. If anybody wants a free DVD copy of my speech, please call me (905 342 5560).