Civility as a rule of law imperative

Robert S Bernstein 

Holland & Knight, New York

At the Rule of Law Symposium, as part of the IBA Annual Conference in Toronto, the session ‘Civility and the legal profession’ framed professional civility as a rule-of-law issue. Held on Friday 7 November 2025 from 1100-1230 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, it was the second of three symposium sessions, alongside panels on multilateralism and sanctions. The IBA described the symposium as a ‘call to action’ for its membership, underscoring lawyers’ responsibility to sustain justice, accountability and public trust. 

The discussion

The session’s core premise was that the legal profession is operating within a broader culture of polarisation. The IBA’s programme linked smartphones, social media, political polarisation, campus radicalisation, post-pandemic social isolation and continued work-from-home practices to a wider coarsening of discourse. Against that backdrop, the panel examined how lawyers are affected by and can contribute to charges of lawfare and claims that opponents pose an existential threat to the rule of law.

A key takeaway was that civility should be understood as part of the profession’s rule-of-law function, not as a soft or optional professional grace. The session description emphasised both sides of the problem: the current environment is fuelling societal conflict, while lawyers and legal regulation can either help or hinder efforts to address it. 

The panel’s composition reflected the breadth of the issue. Robert S Bernstein from Holland & Knight and member of the IBA Rule of Law Forum, chaired the session. Speakers included Professor Ian McDougall, President of the LexisNexis Rule of Law Foundation; Alberto Mora, a Harvard Carr-Center senior fellow and former US Navy general counsel; Christina Porretta, Chief Legal Officer at BDO Canada; and Professor Yuval Shany from Hebrew University of Jerusalem. 

The experience of the panellists pinpoint why the discussion reached beyond courtroom manners. Mora’s public work on torture, national security and the rule of law provided a perspective on how legal advice can either restrain or enable state power. Porretta identified everyday behaviours, namely dismissive virtual meetings, sarcastic communications, refusals of routine accommodations and bystander inaction, as examples of how incivility can erode professional culture. Shany’s scholarship and service on the United Nations Human Rights Committee added an international law perspective on rights, institutions and accountability.

The most practical theme was that lawyers have agency in a deteriorating public environment. The IBA framed legal practice as uniquely capable of fostering international dialogue, reconciliation, fairness and objectivity. That framing turned civility into an affirmative professional tool: a way to de-escalate conflict, model institutional respect and preserve space for reasoned disagreement. For practitioners, that means treating tone, timing, accommodations and disagreement protocols as matters of professional judgment, not mere courtesy. Firms and legal departments can reinforce that standard through leader modelling, clear expectations for written and virtual communications and escalation paths for conduct that undermines fairness or objectivity. 

Conclusion

The closing lesson for practitioners is direct. Civility is not a retreat from zealous advocacy; it is one of the conditions that makes credible advocacy possible. During a time when lawyers are called upon to defend the rule of law globally, the session’s message was that the profession must begin with its own habits of speech, conduct, leadership and restraint.