I am a food bank baby. I lived in more places than I can count. A constant in my life was picking up to go after a knock on the door. Overdue rent would lead to evictions and unpaid utility bills would make for very cold winters. I never got comfortable, knowing that another move was nearby. I don’t know the number exactly, but I think by the time I was twelve I lived in about twenty different places. The adversity made me stubborn with a commitment to break generational cycles of poverty. Living in poverty profoundly shaped my worldview, and I made a commitment as a young girl to alleviate some of the world’s suffering in whatever small way. 

I was eager, motivated and naive. I gleaned from television what a lawyer was. As the first in my family to enter university, I did not have an immediate connection to a real life lawyer. The TV lawyer was my frame of reference: more often a white male than a white female, in a suit, with a stern voice, expressionless, determined to win at all cost. I thought with a law degree I would be respected, could advocate for people like me, and get myself out of poverty. It seemed like the perfect dream. 

“In law school I felt like I was on one of my travelling adventures: in a place where I visibly stood out, did not speak the language, and did not understand the culture.”

My law school experience in many ways was no different from the TV lawyer. The student body was predominantly white, mirrored by the white faculty. Similar to my experiences travelling to a new country, I knew, but also felt, I did not— and could not— belong. I began to check parts of myself at the door: my race, my socioeconomic status, my gender.

The lawyers in the television series Law & Order in the 1990s. A clear example of predominantly white representation onscreen.

As a condition of entry, I felt immediate pressure to pretend that most legal issues we studied in the classroom were devoid of racism, classism, sexism, and colonialism—which are most often experienced in our lives simultaneously. The classroom required me to participate with a “colourless legal analysis”—where the racial origins and implications of law are invisible or marginalized. This requirement was reinforced when my personal experiences and observations about race were dismissed as biased or reduced to a singular incident.

Making it as a law student meant securing one of the few positions in corporate law on Bay Street in Toronto, which demanded a veneer of white, upper-class professionalism. In my first year of law school, I was set on interning at a community legal aid clinic in refugee law. A few classmates doubted my choice, asking why I would want to pursue this “when there’s no money to be made.” Unsurprisingly, law school fails to attract the people most impacted by injustice and motivated to fight human rights abuses because their lives and the issues that they care about are not reflected.  

“It was like an unspoken coat check where I was encouraged to hang up pieces of myself when I entered the law school building and then collect them when I left.”

Law school fostered a cut throat culture. Students tearing pages out of textbooks to gain the thinnest advantage over their classmates. What was required of me to become a successful lawyer was to pursue an individual endeavour removed from a way of thinking and behaving that honoured principles of interconnectedness. I was the most lonely and isolated I have ever felt in law school, but I stayed the course, I played the game, I molded and contorted myself to embody the professional standards of the lawyers I had seen growing up. 

It dawned on me that although the legal profession was technically open to me, it wasn’t designed to include someone like me. While in my articling year, in the courtroom, I was often mistaken as the interpreter, assistant or witness. In the profession, I was often told I did not look like a lawyer. This was also the reaction I received when outside of the workplace and in conversations about “what do you do.” The painful othering that I experienced—the sting of exclusion—was made possible because professionalism excluded the cultural identities of people like me. I learned that the whiter I looked, sounded, and carried myself the better were my chances of succeeding in the program. 

“To conform in my appearance, I had to shed cultural and personality indicators—giving up my beaded earrings and unique, colourful thrift-store finds. My wardrobe became instead a collection of black suits, neutral-tone blouses, and discreet studded earrings.” 

After completing law school, I wasn’t officially a lawyer until I took an oath. The oath included (and still does) that: 

“I solemnly affirm that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, her heirs and successors according to law.” 

Professionalism expects that I pledge allegiance to the very system that harmed my ancestors. Both my paternal and maternal side were under colonial rule. That system, articulated in the oath, makes professionalism today about a way of being, seeing and doing rooted in Eurocentric Western thinking and in colonial values and ideology. For many, to adhere to professionalism in all professions, including the legal profession, requires us to undergo a process of assimilation—to conform, in how we think, look, and act. 

“My father, from India, experienced the direct impact of British rule. Meanwhile, in colonial Canada, ongoing attempts are made to assimilate my maternal Inuit family—to strip them of their cultural identity and sense of belonging.”

Decolonizing professionalism would require the adoption of an expansive framework and worldview, the objective of which is to dismantle, deconstruct, and disrupt colonial barriers that separate and oppress us—a process articulated by Len Pierre, who is Coast Salish from the Katzie First Nation. By embracing this process, we can truly create inclusive learning and workplace environments that allow us to meet the needs of the diverse communities we serve. This also creates a ripple effect: all prospective lawyers benefit from being exposed to ideas of inclusion and equity early in their training. 

The initial step in this work of decolonization requires the legal profession to recognize that there is a colonial problem in our field. By recognizing that some of the legal systems, practices and expectations embedded in professionalism are colonial and fundamentally flawed, we can then start to work towards making our legal profession more equitable, culturally safe, and more relevant for everyone. 

Recognition of the colonial problem in professionalism then allows us to ask the crucial question: how can our work be less colonial? This response involves immediate, actionable steps. We can begin by learning about the Indigenous laws and practices on the lands that we occupy. For example, on the traditional, ancestral, and stolen territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam Indian Band), where I am an uninvited guest, teachings are shared through listening, asking questions, being open to learning, and acknowledging when we don’t know something—an important practice when sq̓əq̓ip (gathered together). As Eve Tuck and Wayne Yang emphasize in their influential paper, Decolonization is not a metaphor, this work also requires us to have difficult conversations, experience uncomfortable feelings, and find the courage to act, be, and think in new ways, recognizing that growth only comes through discomfort. 

“To create a truly inclusive vision of professionalism, we need to stop using it as a barrier to entry. Instead, we must foster a culture of belonging by bridging our vastly different life experiences.”

To build on this internal work, we must actively cultivate trust-based ally relationships informed by a reciprocal responsibility to one another, as described by Knowledge Keeper Liz Akinwenzie and Robyn Ward. Cultivating such relationships means being accountable, reliable, non-judgemental, and present so we can truly hear each other, avoiding missed opportunities for human connection. This commitment also involves evoking allyship by amplifying everyday acts of resistance, such as pushing back against binary thinking of “this or that” and “us or them.” Such rigid, either/or framing is a pillar of the colonial mindset, which actively excludes nuance and denies the existence of diverse, fluid realities. It is through the disruption of this mindset that decolonizing professionalism ultimately benefits everyone.

A sense of belonging and identity is vital for a thriving legal profession and for the diverse communities that we serve. This is essential to ensure that every client receives culturally safe representation. We must challenge the tendency to be measured against a white world and a white body by creating dialogue about how dominant ways of being and thinking are harmful to all of us when they remain the default position.

Meet Harpreet: Harpreet Ahuja is a lawyer, human rights consultant, and social justice advocate driven by the conviction that systems need reimagining. Her work explores the intersection of law, policy, and lived experience—and tells the human stories behind injustice. Harpreet is based in Vancouver on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam Indian Band), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish Nation), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh Nation), and publishes on her website.