Mr. Charles McKeon

This extensive oral history interview captures Charles McKeon’s role as a founding member and later president of The Advocates’ Society. McKeon provides detailed insights into the Society’s origins in the early 1960s, when he and others like Benjamin “Bunny” Levinter and Bill Atwell recognized the need for an organization focused on litigation advocacy. He describes how the Society emerged to fill gaps left by the dormant Canadian Bar Association and to provide specialized programming and court reform advocacy for trial lawyers.

The bulk of the interview focuses on McKeon’s challenging presidency in 1972, which was dominated by the Campbell House financial crisis. He inherited what he thought would be a straightforward heritage project but discovered massive cost overruns, failed fundraising efforts, and construction delays that had left the organization deeply in debt. McKeon details his efforts to resolve the crisis through corporate fundraising, special assessments on members, and careful financial management.

McKeon also discusses the Society’s membership requirements, its relationship with the judiciary, and his views on how specialization in the legal profession affected the organization’s evolution. His perspective offers valuable insights into the development of advocacy as a legal specialty and the institutional challenges facing professional organizations in Ontario’s changing legal landscape.

This description was written by AI and may contain some inaccuracies.