NEWS
Tuesday, November 24, 2015 5
Integrating Innovation from Other Jurisdictions
Recapping the Innovation and Access to Justice Conference
quin gilbert-walters
› canadian forum on civil justice
I
did it! I finally made it to my first universityrelated conference that was held somewhere
other than my own school! This past summer,
while working as a research assistant with the
Canadian Forum on Civil Justice (CFCJ) at Osgoode,
I heard about the inaugural Innovation and Access
to Justice Conference planned for October 2015 in
Montreal. I thought the conference would be a great
opportunity to contextualize a lot of what I had
already learned about access to justice (A2J) through
my role at the CFCJ, and also to see first-hand what
new and innovative developments were taking place
in the A2J arena. Needless to say, I was thrilled when
I got the opportunity to attend the conference a few
weeks ago!
While my role working with the CFCJ has provided me with an online platform to discuss issues
surrounding A2J in Canada and the U.S., and to learn
about the many barriers to legal aid service delivery,
the conference provided me with an entirely different platform to engage in conversations surrounding
A2J issues: mock restorative justice circles, workshops, panel discussions and one-on-one, in-person
dialogues.
Before leaving for the conference, a man at the
subway station asked me for directions. Normally, I
respond with the best directions that I can and go on
my way. This time, however, I struck up a conversation with him. I soon learned that he was traveling
from Toronto to Barrie to support a friend in court. He
justified his travel by saying, “What are you going to
do? He’s a friend.” As the conference got underway, a
question stemming from this conversation remained
at the forefront of my mind: why is going to court so
stressful that someone would require support from a
friend?
I wanted to know how innovative strategies can be
applied to the dispute resolution system to improve
it for Canadians engaged in disputes (and those supporting them) so that they might be able to resolve
their problems before going to court. And, in circumstances where court is necessary, how can the process
ê Picture source: http://iaj2015.openum.ca/
be changed to be less stressful and more informative
for litigants?
The Innovation and Access to Justice Conference
provided an opportunity for lawyers, researchers and
A2J stakeholders from all over the country to discuss
initiatives aimed at resolving A2J issues. It was also
a source of inspiration for innovative strategies and
best practices stemming from A2J initiatives in other
jurisdictions, provinces and countries. The message
was clear: organizations are designing creative and
user-focused ways of implementing new ideas in the
Canadian legal landscape and A2J is coming.
Over the span of two days in Montreal, I learned
first-hand how Canadian organizations are incorporating innovation by interacting with other A2J
advocates around the world. Two organizations in
particular, MyLawBC (www.mylawbc.com) and
the Legal Information Society of Nova Scotia (www.
legalinfo.org), have looked for inspiration outside
of Canada and successfully integrated it into British
Columbia and Nova Scotia, respectively.
Recently, MyLawBC, a website funded by the BC
Legal Services Society and designed to help individuals work through their legal issues, partnered
with the Hague Institute for the Internationalization
of Law (HiiL) to create their own version of a guided
pathway for users — a roadmap for diagnosing a legal
problem and determining an appropriate solution by
answering a series of questions.
The website, to be released early next year, is
designed the same way as its older, Dutch brother,
named Rechtwijzer. Users will be able to create their
own separation agreements and communicate with
other parties through an online chat function while
they do so. Rechtwijzer currently offers mediation
and adjudication for a fee if users get stuck on an
issue. MyLawBC won’t offer mediation and adjudication services at the outset but it could be implemented
later if the new website is successful.
The first round of user testing for this new initiative took place early this year, followed by a
second round of testing this past summer. Although
MyLawBC has learned from Rechtwijzer that a guided
pathways website for family law disputes can work,
the user testing ensured that the website would function in a similar way in British Columbia.
Taking that issue into consideration, it is unclear
how British Columbians will react to MyLawBC’s new
website. This initiative by MyLawBC provides a viable
alternative to the formal legal system. By centralizing the information and resolution process, MyLawBC
has created a less stressful process for users. If parties are able to determine their own legal solutions,
then there will be little need for them, let alone their
support persons, to resolve the issue in court. For
the man traveling to Barrie, this could mean that he
might not have to make the trek to support his friend
in court at all.
Similarly, the Legal Information Society of Nova
Scotia (LISNS) has looked abroad for innovative strategies that can be adopted to help to increase its influence in Nova Scotia. They have drawn inspiration
from English legal practice as well as New York State
courthouses.
LISNS has taken a different approach to improving the dispute resolution process. Unlike MyLawBC,
the programs being implemented in Nova Scotia
assist people who will be going to court. In this way,
the LISNS addresses the difficulty with which people
resolve their legal problems through the legal system.
Their new Public Navigator Pilot Program places
trained volunteers with self-represented litigants
to assist them in navigating the court system for the
duration of their legal dispute. For LISNS, it has not
gone unnoticed that there is an increasing number of
people representing themselves in court, for whom a
support person can provide emotional and minimal
legal support.
Courts are often inaccessible, due to both physical
and other types of barriers, ranging from la