The Fiercest Debate: Cecil A. Wright, the Benchers and Legal Education in Ontario 1923-1957

In the dozen years after the end of the Second World War, long-standing conflicts about the nature of education for the legal profession in Ontario became especially acute. Fortunately, climax and successful compromise came in 1957. In that year the Law Society of Upper Canada, which had controlled legal education and admission to practice from the early days of the Colony of Upper Canada, gave up its monopoly of legal education and conceded an equal position in this respect to Ontario universities willing and able to enter the field. Several were, and promptly did so. Indeed the University of Toronto was already there. For many decades it had been teaching law, but the Law Society refused proper recognition to the University of Toronto law degrees for purposes of admission to the legal profession in the Province.