Call for Proposals Launched for 2025 People-Centred Justice Workshop

September 18, 2024September 18, 2024ajrn1 Leave a comment

The 3^rd annual People-Centred Justice Workshop will take place from May 30-31, 2025 in Vancouver, BC, on the unceded traditional territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. Organized by the BC Access to Justice Centre for Excellence at the University of Victoria, in collaboration with University of British Columbia’s Peter A. Allard School of Law and Thompson Rivers University’s Faculty of Law, and building on the success of the 2023 and 2024 PCJ workshops, this event aims to provide a venue to discuss Canadian A2J initiatives. The theme for the 2025 Workshop is “Innovation in People-Centred Justice.” The workshop will be conducted in a hybrid format, with AI-assisted translation services available for participants joining remotely or in person.

The organizing committee welcomes proposals on research, projects, or papers addressing any form of innovation in this field, whether through technology, procedural reform, or alternative approaches to people-centred justice. If you would like to participate, please submit your information and a brief proposal outline in this form by October 7, 2024. No abstract or complete work is required now, and subsequent deadlines will be communicated with participants. Participants will not be strictly held to the outline they provide. The October 7 deadline will allow organizers to better plan the workshop program and apply for funding to support the event.

The 2025 People-Centred Justice Workshop will immediately follow the 2025 Conference of the Federation of Law Reform Agencies of Canada (FOLRAC), which will also be held in Vancouver. Some participants may wish to attend both events.

U.S. Institute Publishes Report on Regulatory Reforms to Address Legal Services Gaps

September 6, 2024September 6, 2024ajrn1 Leave a comment

A new report by the the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System (IAALS) presents recommendations for the use of legal regulation innovation as a way to address the urgent legal services gap across much of America. The report outlines a series of objectives and findings from discussions with leaders from states considering or implementing regulatory innovation.

The report presents 12 recommendations reflecting stakeholder contributions, program and structure requirements, messaging, and research & data. The following are some of the recommendations included in the report:

Include ethics attorneys who are open to considering regulatory innovation in regulatory initiatives
Include at least one, but ideally as many as possible, representatives from the state’s supreme court on any regulatory innovation task force
Engage community-based organizations and the public from the outset
Focus initial efforts on education about the problem and why change is needed
Regulators should collect more data
Regulators and other leaders should consider how changes to other rules of professional conduct could increase access to affordable legal help

Unlocking Legal Regulation: Lessons Learned and Recommendations for Launching and Sustaining Regulatory Reform by Jessica Bednarz is available online here: https://iaals.du.edu/sites/default/files/documents/publications/ulr_lessons_learned.pdf.

Yukon Law Society Report Examines Access to Lawyers throughout the Yukon

August 19, 2024August 19, 2024ajrn1 Leave a comment

A new report by the Law Society of Yukon’s Access to Justice Committee explores access to lawyers who reside and practice in the Yukon, in people-centred practice areas. Members of the Access to Justice Committee visited 13 communities throughout the Yukon and spoke with representatives about the challenges experienced when trying to access the justice system. The Committee also reviewed national data, and local data from legal information organizations and the Yukon law courts. Information in the Access to Justice Committee’s report is further informed by three surveys administered by the Committee.

Findings from these sources suggest that people in the Yukon do not have adequate access to lawyers. In particular, there are few lawyers and legal resources available outside of Whitehorse. According to the report, “the lack of legal resources suggests inequities in accessing lawyers across communities.” The report also identifies specific challenges related to: knowing when and how to contact a lawyer, a lack of civil law lawyers, case volume and delays in circuit court, not enough legal aid coverage, and a lack of cultural awareness or integration in the community.Access to Justice in the Yukon: Access to Lawyers, a report by the Law Society of Yukon’s Access to Justice Committee is available in English here: https://lawsocietyyukon.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/A2J-Report-Access-to-Lawyers-July-5-2024.pdf.

Justice Canada Publishes Report Examining Out-of-Court Dispute Resolution in Family Law

August 16, 2024August 16, 2024ajrn1 Leave a comment

In 2023, the Department of Justice Canada launched a study aimed at examining government-funded out-of-court dispute resolution services for families experiencing a separation or divorce in Canada. The study focuses on better understanding the following questions:

What are the mediation or conciliation services or programs offered by provinces and territories to resolve family law issues?
How are outcomes measured? What does a successful or partially successful outcome look like? Partially successful outcome?
Which factors are consistent across jurisdictions?

The final report includes a summary of program features, details on COVID-19 pandemic response and other changes to programs, service metrics and discusses the potential for further research.

The recently published report on “Out-of-court dispute resolution for families experiencing separation or divorce in Canada” is available in English here: https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/jr/dispute-differends/docs/rsd_rr2023_out-of-court-dr-eng.pdf.

Justice Canada Launches Survey on Federal Child Support Guidelines

August 14, 2024August 14, 2024ajrn1 Leave a comment

Child support in Canada is calculated using child support guidelines. Child support guidelines comprise of rules and tables used to determine child support amounts. The Federal Child Support Guidelines are regulations under the Divorce Act that apply when parents divorce or are divorced. There are also provincial and territorial child support guidelines that apply when married parents separate but do not divorce, or when the parents were never married to each other.

The Department of Justice has launched a survey to gather feedback on possible changes to the Federal Guidelines. The survey focuses on two main areas of the Federal Guidelines:

Determining child support amounts in shared parenting time arrangements and
Compliance with income disclosure obligations.

The survey will take roughly 15 minutes to complete. The deadline to participate in the survey is September 25, 2024. Responses will be anonymous.

To access the survey, visit: https://form.simplesurvey.com/f/s.aspx?s=42c6ed2c-8127-47a7-b3a7-f264c5d32a92.

To access a PDF version of the survey, contact: rsd.drs@justice.gc.ca.

Some information in this post was taken verbatim from an e-blast circulated by Justice Canada.

New UK-Based Report Examines Economic Value of Free Legal Advice

August 6, 2024August 6, 2024ajrn1 Leave a comment

A report commissioned by the UK-based Access to Justice Foundation and the Bar Council of England and Wales presents new insights on the economic value of the free advice sector in the United Kingdom. The new report recognizes impacts of inflation, rising energy and food prices, and the cost-of-living crisis on the need for legal advice.

The main objectives of this research include:

Provide current estimates of the direct economic benefits of the free legal advice sector to government finances.
Examine the possible impacts of free legal advice on reducing costs and backlogs in the court and tribunal service.
Weigh the possible need for free legal advice in the longer term.

Key findings include:

The provision of free specialist legal advice saves the Treasury approximately £9,100 per case.
For every £1 spent on free specialist legal advice and its outcomes in 2023, there was a saving to government of £2.71.
Advice provision helps to ease pressure on courts and tribunals through improved efficiency and fewer litigants in person.
Despite the positive impact on government finances and positive knock-on impacts, advice providers say the free legal advice sector is at a ‘breaking point’, with funding failing to meet current demand or expected future demand.

The Value of Justice for All: Evaluating the Case for Funding the Free Specialist Legal Advice Sector report was prepared by Pragmatix Advisory. The August 2024 Value of Justice for All report is available online here: https://atjf.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/The-value-of-justice-for-all-a-report-for-the-Access-to-Justice-Foundation-and-the-Bar-Council-from-Pragmatix-Advisory.pdf.

U.S. Survey Highlights Misconceptions about Access to Civil Justice

August 6, 2024August 6, 2024ajrn1 Leave a comment

Recently published findings from an online survey in the U.S. reveal that more than half of adults mistakenly believe they are entitled to legal representation for civil legal matters if they cannot afford representation. Among adults ages 18-34, the figure is higher with approximately two thirds of adults in this age range believing they are entitled to legal representation for civil legal matters. The survey also indicates that approximately 59% of people who experienced a civil legal matter within the past three years did not seek help from a lawyer.

The online survey was carried out from July 11 to July 15 with 2,096 adult (18+) respondents in the U.S. The survey was commissioned by the Legal Services Corporation (LSC) and conducted by The Harris Poll. To learn more about the survey, visit: https://www.lsc.gov/press-release/more-half-americans-mistakenly-think-they-have-right-attorney-all-civil-cases.

UK Report Makes Case for Immigration Legal Aid Data

July 31, 2024July 31, 2024ajrn1 Leave a comment

Immigration Legal Aid and Value for Money: Identifying Missing Data is a newly published briefing paper examining areas where more data is needed and the types of data that are needed to understand value for money in the current immigration legal aid model. An objective of the Legal Aid, Sentencing, and Punishment of Offenders Act of 2012 (LASPO) was to reduce the costs of civil legal aid. Research suggests there is insufficient quantitative data and insufficient good quality data being collected by the government to determine the costs and benefits generated by LASPO and—specific to this research—the impacts of the reduced scope of immigration legal aid under LASPO.

The briefing paper proposes several hypotheses, including:

Difficulties that appellants face accessing legal representation increases costs for HM Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS)

Immigration legal aid helps people to resolve their immigration issues more quickly, which has potential direct cost benefits for health services as well as wider social benefits

Costs to local authorities where immigration legal aid is not available exceed the savings made by cuts to the budget for immigration legal aid

In addition, the briefing paper identifies specific types of data that are not currently being published and presents recommendations on who could collect these data.

Immigration Legal Aid and Value for Money: Identifying Missing Data is written by Siân Pearce, Dr Emma Marshall and Dr Samuel Engle. This briefing paper is supported by the University of Exeter, Migrants Organise and the Public Law Project.

The full briefing paper is available in English here: https://publiclawproject.org.uk/content/uploads/2024/07/2024HASS018-Briefing-paper-AW.pdf.

Justice Canada Publishes Steering Group Report on Black Justice Strategy

June 28, 2024June 28, 2024ajrn1 Leave a comment

Canada’s Department of Justice has announced the publication of an external Steering Group report in support of the development of Canada’s Black Justice Strategy. Canada’s Black Justice Strategy aims to “address the overrepresentation of Black people in the criminal justice system, including as victims of crime.” A Roadmap for Transformative Change: Canada’s Black Justice Strategy is informed by Steering Group led discussions held between March 2023 and February 2024.

Key areas of focus for the discussions included:

Social Determinants of Justice – Employment and Income, Housing, Education, Health and Mental Health, Child Welfare, and Immigration and Settlement
Policing
Courts and Legislation
Corrections
Parole, Re-entry and Reintegration

The report includes eight structural and accountability recommendations aimed at advancing systemic change, and 106 short, medium and long-term recommendations identified under the five key areas of focus.

A Roadmap for Transformative Change: Canada’s Black Justice Strategy by Akwasi Owusu-Bempah and Zilla Jones is available in English here: https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/cj-jp/cbjs-scjn/transformative-transformateur/index.html.

Étapes pour un changement transformateur : Stratégie canadienne en matière de justice pour les personnes noires est disponible en français ici : https://www.justice.gc.ca/fra/jp-cj/scjn-cbjs/transformateur-transformative/index.html.