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Social Enterprise, Law & Legal Education, Lorne Sossin, Devon Kapoor

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

This article examines the relationship between law and social enterprise. More specifically, it explores ways in which the law and the law school can serve to refine and promote the development of social enterprise. The article begins by canvassing the existing conceptions of social enterprise to provide a basis for understanding and to identify points of access for legal intervention. At the end of this analysis, we arrive at a working definition of social enterprise: A legal entity engaged in socially responsible economic activity for the purpose of generating revenue that is to be used to advance a social mission. …

Volume 91, Issue 1 (2017)

Obiter Dicta

No abstract provided.

Canadian-Tanzanian Human Rights Engagements: A Critical Assessment Of The Literature And A Research Agenda, Julena Jumbe Gabagambi

The Transnational Human Rights Review

This article examines the historical background of human rights in Tanzania and the ways in which Canada has been engaging with Tanzania on the improvement of human rights. In the past, Tanzania was ruled by colonial powers, for which respect for human rights was never a priority. Having attained independence in 1961, however, the country did not adequately respect human rights. This is in part due to the argument that, if the British themselves did not practice it, then independent Tanzania should not be forced to. Furthermore, the introduction of human rights at the time held the potential to paralyze …

Closing The Employment Standards Enforcement Gap, An Agenda For Change, Leah F. Vosko, John Grundy, Eric Tucker, Andrea M. Noack, Mary Gellatly, Rebecca Casey, Mark P. Thomas, Guliz Akkaymak, Parvinder Hira-Friesen

Commissioned Reports, Studies and Public Policy Documents

Precarious employment is increasing in Ontario. A growing share of Ontario’s private sector employees earns low wages while a shrinking portion belongs to unions. These trends are fueled by changes in the structure of Ontario’s labour force. In many industries, including accommodation and food services, administrative services, and cleaning, workplaces are being transformed through greater use of contracting out, franchising, and extended supply chains. These ways of structuring work contribute to driving working conditions downward.

Engaging The Power Of Community To Expand Legal Services To Low-Income Ontarians, Ab Currie

Canadian Forum on Civil Justice

The clinic–intermediary partnerships/legal health check-up is an approach to service delivery that recognizes the need to create a strong mechanism to achieve outreach and to provide holistic and integrated services to disadvantaged people. This is a response to a solid body of research, consistent with much clinical experience by practitioners, that there is a high prevalence of unmet legal need among the population, that people often do not recognize the legal issues embedded in the everyday problems they experience, that for this and other reasons they typically do not seek appropriate assistance with legal problems in a timely manner, and …

Canadian Access To Justice Initiatives: Justice Development Goals Status Report, Lisa Moore, Nicole Aylwin, Trevor C. W. Farrow

Canadian Forum on Civil Justice

One of the keys to understanding what needs to be done in the area of access to justice in civil and family matters is to first understand what is already being done. That is the goal of this first ever national survey (“Survey’) on the Action Committee on Access to Justice in Civil and Family Matters’ (“Action Committee”) nine Justice Development Goals. This Survey, in support of this first (and hopefully regular) Status Report (“Report”), is based on the Action Committee’s A Roadmap for Change report that offers six guiding principles for change and a ninepoint Access to Justice Roadmap.”1 …

Canadian Access To Justice Initiatives: Justice Development Goals Status Report, Trevor C. W. Farrow, Lisa Moore, Nicole Aylwin

Commissioned Reports, Studies and Public Policy Documents

One of the keys to understanding what needs to be done in the area of access to justice in civil and family matters is to first understand what is already being done. That is the goal of this first ever national survey (“Survey’) on the Action Committee on Access to Justice in Civil and Family Matters’ (“Action Committee”) nine Justice Development Goals. This Survey, in support of this first (and hopefully regular) Status Report (“Report”), is based on the Action Committee’s A Roadmap for Change report that offers six guiding principles for change and a ninepoint Access to Justice Roadmap.” …

Volume 90, Issue 10 (2017)

Obiter Dicta

No abstract provided.

Volume 90, Issue 9 (2017)

Obiter Dicta

No abstract provided.

Undercompensating For Discrimination: An Empirical Study Of General Damages Awards Issued By The Human Rights Tribunal Of Ontario, 2000-2015, Audra Ranalli, Bruce Ryder

Osgoode Legal Studies Research Paper Series

The authors present the results of a comprehensive quantitative analysis of general damages awards issued by the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario from 2000 to 2015. From the results, the authors argue that general damages awards continue to be too low to reflect the importance of the equality rights protected by the Ontario Human Rights Code. While many expected that general damages awards would increase as a result of amendments to the Code that took effect in 2008, the data reveals that the range of the vast majority of general damages awards has remained relatively unchanged following the legislative reforms. …

Disability Accessibility Guidebook For Mediators, Martha Simmons, David Lepofsky

Books

ADRIC launched this important new guidebook during the ADRIC 2017 Conference when co-author Martha Simmons presented a session on the topic. It was a resounding success.

This guidebook discusses the importance of accessibility in mediation and provides concrete suggestions to increase access to the mediation process.

Innovation And Access To Justice: Addressing The Challenge Of A Diverse Justice Ecosystem, Nicole Aylwin, Martha E. Simmons

Articles & Book Chapters

Despite having been a mainstay topic of conversation for many years in the fields of business, technology, public administration and other specialized service sectors such as medicine, ‘innovation’ has only recently begun to infuse conversations in the justice sector. With the widespread recognition that globalization is disrupting traditional legal roles and organizational structures, that technology is poised to radically reconfigure how legal services are delivered, and that despite best efforts, the access to justice gap continues to grow in Canada, innovation – as both a noun and a verb - has become a talisman, poised to help address the challenges …

Another One Bites The Dust! Bolstered Law Offices And A Blocked Taxman In Chambre Des Notaires Du Québec, Amy Salyzyn

The Supreme Court Law Review: Osgoode’s Annual Constitutional Cases Conference

In Canada (Attorney General) v. Chambre des notaires du Québec the Supreme Court once again vigorously defended a lawyer’s obligation to preserve confidential client information. The Court’s recent interest in solicitor-client privilege is significant. Since 2006, the Court has heard at least 10 cases dealing with solicitor-client privilege, about the same number it heard during that period related to each of sections 15 and 2(b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (“Charter”). The Court’s language in these cases reinforces the perception that the Court views solicitor-client privilege as extraordinarily important. Among other things, the Court has described solicitor-client …

Reconciliation And The Constitution: A Transcript Of The Roundtable, Amar Bhatia, Beverley Jacobs, Jonathan Rudin, Douglas Sanderson, Mark Walters

The Supreme Court Law Review: Osgoode’s Annual Constitutional Cases Conference

As described in the opening piece in this Volume of the Supreme Court Law Review, unprecedented national media and political attention was given to the relationship between Indigenous people and the Canadian state in 2016. As part of our conference, we asked a group of people to come together and talk about the future of the Constitution as a means or an obstacle to reconciliation with Indigenous peoples and First Nations in Canada. Amnesty International’s most recent global report on the State of the World’s Human Rights praised Canada’s action regarding refugees, but then noted that “[c]oncerns persisted about the …

Continuum: Volume 41 (Winter 2017), Osgoode Hall Law School Of York University

Continuum: Osgoode Hall Law School Alumni Magazine

No abstract provided.

Law School As Social Innovation, Lorne Sossin

Articles & Book Chapters

Legal education is in the midst of a range of challenges and disruptions. This address outlines these dynamics, and explores the potential of social innovation as a model for law schools which both responds to current challenges and enhances resilience in the face of disruption. By reframing legal education as facing outward, and advancing its public interest mandate through partnerships, collaboration and academic initiatives designed to solve social problems, law schools can enhance the student learning experience, generate new forms of legal knowledge and thrive at a time of rapid change. Address delivered at the Australian Law Teachers Association (ALTA) …

The Internet As A Site Of Legal Education And Collaboration Across Continents And Time Zones: Using Online Dispute Resolution As A Tool For Student Learning, Martha Simmons, Darin Thompson

Articles & Book Chapters

Increasingly, digital technologies are influencing and impacting dispute resolution, particularly in the emerging field of online dispute resolution (ODR). ODR holds the potential to increase access to justice by engaging disputants in dramatically new ways. As a relatively new subject, ODR is unlikely to form part of the traditional curriculum at law schools. Aside from the question of whether it will become a mainstream part of tomorrow’s legal or dispute resolution landscape, ODR does show us that a familiarity with technology is becoming more important for tomorrow’s lawyers. As educators, how can we expose law students to these new forces …

Designing Administrative Justice, Lorne Sossin

Articles & Book Chapters

This article explores the adaptation of design thinking to administrative justice. The human centred design perspective has been missing from most debates surrounding the design and reform of administrative tribunals in Canada. As a result, the author asserts that the administrative justice system in Canada at all levels of government (federal, provincial, municipal, and Indigenous) is generally fragmented, poorly coordinated, and under-resourced in relation to the needs of its users and has multiple barriers of entry.

This article is divided into two parts. The first part reviews the development of design thinking in the context of legal services and legal …

The Compliance Model Of Employment Standards Enforcement: An Evidence-Based Assessment Of Its Efficacy In Instances Of Wage Theft, Leah F. Vosko, John Grundy, Eric M Tucker, Mark P. Thomas, Andrea M. Noack, Rebecca Casey, Mary Gellatly, Jennifer Mussell

Articles & Book Chapters

This article critically assesses the compliance model of employment standards (ES) enforcement through a study of monetary employment standards violations in Ontario, Canada. The findings suggest that, in contexts where changes to the organization of work deepen insecurity for employees, models of enforcement that emphasize compliance over deterrence are unlikely to effectively prevent or remedy ES violations.

Justiciability, Access To Justice And The Development Of Constitutional Law In Canada, Lorne Sossin, Gerard J. Kennedy

Articles & Book Chapters

Concentrating on Canadian experience, specifically litigation under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (the ‘Charter’), this article seeks to reconcile the access to justice benefits of summary procedures with the government litigant’s duty to act in the public interest (or as a ‘model litigant’) and uphold the rule of law. Though acknowledging the benefits that can result from the use of summary procedures to end litigation, the authors observe that compliance with strict requirements in procedural law are frequently dispensed with in the Charter context. In fact, summary procedures can have a devastating effect on the development of Charter …

Social Enterprise, Law And Legal Education, Devon Kapoor, Lorne Sossin

All Papers

In this brief essay, we explore the relationship between law and social enterprise. Is social enterprise, like the “corporation,” a legal construct, or is it a term used to capture an emerging set of practices by existing entities—for example, where registered charities set up a separate structure to generate revenues which then fund the charitable activities. An organization that has undertaken such practices is the well-known Canadian charity, “Me to We,” which, while focused on development activities in sub-Saharan Africa, also has a revenue generating operation selling fair trade T-shirts and other goods. In describing this relationship, Me to We’s …

A Flex-Time Jd In Canada: New Approaches To The Accessibility Of Legal Education, Darcel Bullen, Lorne Sossin

Articles & Book Chapters

This article examines accessibility and inclusion in legal education. Responding to the Canadian Bar Association’s call for accessible and innovative legal education in the Futures Report, this study explores the possibilities (and limits) of a Flex Time Juris Doctor (“JD”) program and how such a program might foster further diverse and inclusive learning community for law students.The article situates the debate around more flexible forms of legal education in historical context, highlighting the role part-time legal studies has played in facilitating the entry of outsider groups into the legal profession. While there is not a mid-sized city in the US …

Beyond Reconciliation: Decolonizing Clinical Legal Education, Patricia Barkaskas, Sarah Buhler

Journal of Law and Social Policy

How can legal clinics and clinical legal educators respond to the ongoing harms of settler colonialism? At a time when "reconciliation" is top of mind for many legal educators in light of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission calls to action, can reconciliation be taken up in a meaningful way through clinical legal education? Does reconciliation demand decolonization and if so can clinical legal education work towards decolonization? These are the questions we consider in this article. Drawing on our respective experiences with the University of British Columbia and the University of Saskatchewan’s clinical law programs, and grounding our analysis in …

“Don’T Want To Get Exposed”: Law’S Violence And Access To Justice, Sarah Buhler

Journal of Law and Social Policy

For many members of marginalized communities, law is all too often an author of oppression, and the justice system is a site not of justice but of threat and harm. Yet most access to justice projects in Canada devote themselves to the task of rendering law and the justice system more available to the public without a serious consideration of these critical and troubling community-held insights. In this article, I draw on qualitative interviews conducted with community members in Saskatoon and the literature on law’s violence to argue that those who are concerned about access to justice must come to …

Troubling Trends In Canada’S Immigration System Via The Excluded Family Member Regulation: A Survey Of Jurisprudence And Lawyers, Jamie Liew, Prasanna Balasundaram, Jennifer Stone

Journal of Law and Social Policy

When a law purports to combat a problem, many of us take for granted that it is effective in doing so, and that it is not harming people. This article looks at one regulation that, while aiming to protect the integrity of the immigration system, in fact erodes the humanitarian and compassionate objective of reunifying families. Regulation 117(9)(d) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations imposes a life-time ban on sponsoring a family member if the sponsor, when immigrating to Canada, did not disclose the existence of the family member and therefore have them examined by immigration officials. This article …

Osgoode Syllabus Of Courses And Seminars: 2017 - 2018, Office Of Student Services

Syllabi

No abstract provided.

How Ontarians Experience The Law: An Examination On Incidence Rate, Seriousness And Response To Legal Problems, Matthew Dylag

LLM Theses

Access to civil justice is a conceptual framework that, at its most basic, claims all people are entitled to have their legal disputes resolved fairly. However, it is currently understood that these ideals are not reflected in the day-to-day realities of ordinary people. Though scholarship has examined ways in which to better allow for meaningful access to civil justice, there is still a need for further quantitative research especially from the Canadian perspective. This paper provides an empirical foundation to this discussion by examining the 2014 Cost of Justice project survey. Specifically, it examines the incidence rate of civil legal …

Professor Trevor Farrow To Be A Speaker At Oecd-Open Society Justice Initiative Meeting On “Understanding Effective Access To Justice” Nov. 3 And 4 At The Oecd In Paris, Office Of External Relations & Communications

Ovations

The Open Society Justice Initiative (OSJI) and Organisation of Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) will convene a 2-day technical workshop on measuring people’s legal needs and effective access to justice on 3-4 November 2016 in Paris. The meeting will bring together a group of governmental, non-governmental and academic experts to discuss the people-focused measurement approaches to access to justice, including legal needs surveys and their practical use.

Designing Administrative Justice: Draft, Lorne Sossin

All Papers

This study explores the adaptation of design thinking to administrative justice. Design thinking – or human centred design – approaches services and products from the perspective of the user. This perspective too often is missing in the design of administrative tribunals, most of which have been developed top-down to serve the needs of a particular policy interest of the Government of the day.

This paper is divided into two parts. In the first part, I review the development of design thinking in the context of legal services and legal organizations. In the second part, I explore the implications of this …

A Study Of The Costs Of Legal Services In Personal Injury Litigation In Ontario: Final Report, Allan C. Hutchinson

Commissioned Reports, Studies and Public Policy Documents

Contingency Fee Agreements (CFAs) are now a fixed feature of the Ontario litigation landscape. However, little research or study has been done on exactly how they operate in practice, whether they advance the objectives that they were intended to achieve, and whether litigants are best served by the current arrangements. In this study, I intend to make a preliminary start to that research, set out some tentative criticisms of the CFA system as it currently operates, and, where appropriate, suggest preliminary proposals for change.

It should be said at the outset that my efforts to obtain real and serious data …