Collaborators: Beth Bilson, KC, Leah Howie, Brea Lowenberger

The project, Creating a Seat at the Table: Reflections from Women in Law, is informed and inspired in part by previous work of organizations such as the Law Society of Saskatchewan and the ground-breaking Touchstones Report (1993) of the Canadian Bar Association. The Law Society of Saskatchewan’s Justicia Project Report (2016) outlined that “while women are entering the legal profession and private practice in record numbers, the statistics across the country show that they also leave private practice in disproportionate numbers”. When Saskatchewan lawyers were asked how equitability in their workplace could be improved, the “most common answer (18%) was a need to increase female leadership and overall presence in the workplace”.  In considering the impacts that proper mentorship had on participants, “[o]verall, there were comments that there seems to be less mentorship occurring today than in the past”. Other data collected indicated that there was “… a need for more networking among women”. More recently, several participants at the March 2019 meeting of the Dean’s Forum on Access to Justice identified that “[b]arriers to inclusion can be deeply entrenched and so using inspiration from the work and practices developed by others may be an important step to creating a faster pace of change than has historically been the case”.

This project has brought together a group of women alumni to reflect on their experiences, and those reflections are the foundation of a book, forthcoming Fall 2023 that will celebrate success and inspire ongoing action. CREATE Justice hopes to build on this project to engage with Usask College of Law graduates and other Saskatchewan lawyers in other initiatives that will foster leadership, mentorship and networking among female lawyers. 

Interested in getting involved or learning more? Email createjustice@usask.ca.

Beth Bilson, KC, Leah Howie, and Brea Lowenberger, “Invitation To Support HAVE A SEAT AT THE TABLE – Celebrating Success, Inspiring Action: Letters From Women Alumni Of The University Of Saskatchewan College Of Law” (Law Society of Saskatchewan Blog, September 9, 2021)