The Law Society of Manitoba’s (LSM) Part-Time Practicing Fees pilot program began in April 2022 and allows eligible lawyers to work part-time in order to tend to caregiving duties — be it for children or family members.
Recently, eligibility was expanded to include licensees suffering serious chronic illness or disability, according to a webpage dedicated to the program.
With the extension, the pilot will now run until March 31, 2027.
Around 30 lawyers are currently enrolled. Of those, only one is in the program due to illness.
To be eligible, applicants must be in private practice and agree to not exceed 750 billable hours per year and not earn more than $80,000 from those billings. Participants must track their hours and earnings and notify the LSM if they exceed those ceilings.
Full-time lawyers in Manitoba pay $2,645, (plus GST) in law society fees per year. Part-timers in the program pay half that but still pay full price for practice insurance, which in Manitoba is provided by the Canadian Lawyers Insurance Association (CLIA).
The webpage states that CLIA does “not have the ability to individually underwrite given the relatively small size of the program” and that there is an insufficient number of insured CLIA lawyers to allow for the subsidizing of part-timers.
The LSM “will absorb the lost revenue resulting from members switching from full-time to part-time practice for the duration of the pilot program,” it states.
In-house counsel and government lawyers are not eligible.
An LSM webpage suggests the program predominately targets “young female lawyers” who may be compelled to leave the profession completely due to caregiving responsibilities.
“The goal of this initiative is to help reduce the rates of attrition of young female lawyers from private practice and provide flexibility to lawyers with significant, ongoing care-giving responsibilities for other family members,” it states.
Alissa Schacter, LSM’s director of policy and strategic initiatives, told Law360 Canada the pilot reflects the changing times in that “not everybody fits the traditional model as a full-time lawyer.”
Alissa Schacter, Law Society of Manitoba
Schacter said the program also benefits the public.
“If we can keep lawyers in private practice, that will hopefully help increase access to justice. But I think more than that, a more diverse profession will better reflect the diversity of the public it serves.”
Schacter was asked why the pilot was extended rather than made a permanent fixture.
“We launched the pilot in 2022, which was in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, and many lawyers were dealing with additional professional and personal challenges. So, it was a bit of an atypical time, and I think because of that, the benchers wanted to provide an extended window for more lawyers to have an opportunity to participate in a post-COVID period. It also gives us a bit more runway to be able to gather data and make a decision about what to do permanently.”
Schacter said that if the program becomes permanent, decisions will be made on how to make up for the lost revenue. She said that “at some point, it may have to be subsidized by the rest of the profession.”
To this, the webpage states that the LSM “will review the data gathered from the pilot program and consider any potential budgetary impacts along with the results from the pilot program in determining the next steps.”
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