According the Vancouver Sun newspaper, figures from the Law Society of British Columbia show that while ethnic minorities constitute more than 25 per cent of the province’s overall population, they account for only about 14.5 per cent of the legal profession.

Systemic barriers

Indeed, the picture was even more skewed in the province’s largest city, Vancouver, where  42 per cent of the general population comes from ethnic minority communities but only 18 per cent of lawyers are ethnic minorities.
Thelma O’Grady, chairwoman of equity and diversity at the law society, told the newspaper ‘there are systemic barriers in the profession. Lawyers tend to recruit young lawyers that remind them of themselves’.
David Namkung, vice-president of the local chapter of the Federation of Asian Canadian Lawyers, told the Sun: ‘A lot of us are first-generation immigrants with English being a second language, and with the law putting a premium on language abilities, it’s clearly an upward battle for us.’