Fortieth Anniversary of the Law Society’s Archives

Guest Blogger
Paul Leatherdale
Manager, Corporate Records & Archives

In the fall of 1983, the archives program of the Law Society officially began. An archives was established to collect and preserve documents of historical significance to the Law Society and the legal profession, and to make the records available for research.

Over the past forty years, the Law Society’s archives has grown to include over 650 fonds and collections documenting the administration of the Law Society and the activities of Ontario’s licensees and legal organizations. Our holdings now include over 2,500 cartons of textual records, 130,000 photographs, 4,600 architectural drawings, 3,500 audio-visual items, 1,500 special collection items, tens of thousands of digital records, and a massive collection of reference articles. We continue to provide research and information resource services to Law Society staff, licensees, and members of the public.

Over the past several years, the archives has seen a dramatic increase in the number of electronic records it acquires (and a decrease in paper). This shift towards electronic records presented a major challenge to how we stored and preserved these documents. Last year, the archives launched a digital preservation system to ensure that its electronic records can be stored and accessed for many years to come. The archives’ Digital Collections site contains publicly accessible records stored in the system.

The archives also maintains a few social media accounts to spotlight interesting items or people, and to make archival content available to the public:

Instagram and Facebook accounts highlight items in the archival collection, commemorate past Ontario licensees, and mark events in Ontario’s legal history.
Flickr contains public domain images from the archival collection.
YouTube contains videos of past Continuing Legal Education sessions and equity events.

Thank you to all the researchers, donors, and supporters over the past forty years!