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Osgoode Syllabus Of Courses And Seminars: 2021 - 2022, Office Of Student Services

Syllabi

No abstract provided.

Let’S Pick Up Where We Left Off 25 Years Ago To Expand Access To Civil Justice In Canada, Ab Currie

Canadian Forum on Civil Justice

The 2020 World Justice Project (WJP) Rule of Law Index ranks Canada 9th overall out of 128 countries on a composite rule of law index made up of 8 factors. In this latest version of the WJP Rule of Law Index Canada ranks 9th on constraints on government powers, 9th on absence of corruption, 9th on open government, 9th on respect for fundamental rights, 9th on order and security, 11th on regulatory enforcement, 10th on criminal justice and, much lower than the other rule of law indicators, 19th globally on civil justice. Canada’s overall score is 0.81 out of 1.00. …

The Jail Accountability & Information Line: Early Reflections On Praxis, Souheil Benslimane, Sarah Speight, Justin Piché, Aaron Doyle

Journal of Law and Social Policy

Poor conditions of confinement and human rights violations have been commonplace at the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre (OCDC) since it opened in the early 1970s. Recently, the deplorable treatment of provincial prisoners at OCDC has been documented in reports by the Ontario Ombudsperson, the Ontario Human Rights Commission, the Independent Review of Ontario Corrections, the Community Advisory Board (established in 2014), the OCDC Task Force (established in 2016) and coronial inquests. Despite the avalanche of recommendations flowing from these reform-oriented interventions, pressing human rights issues persist at the facility—ranging from inedible food to inadequate health care that has contributed to preventable …

The Community Being Helped Is The Resource That Is Needed, Ab Currie

Canadian Forum on Civil Justice

There is a widespread recognition of the importance of not-for-profit organizations for meeting the access to justice needs of disadvantaged people. Centered within that growing body of literature, this paper points to the importance of community service agencies and voluntary organizations as resources that enable community legal clinics to identify and meet the legal needs and to provide social justice outcomes that would otherwise be beyond their capacity if limited to resources from conventional sources. The resources available from the community are not monetary. They include entrée into hard-to-reach and -serve populations, special knowledge of about the problems experienced by …

Practising Law For Rich And Poor People: Towards A More Progressive Approach, Allan C. Hutchinson

Articles & Book Chapters

It is 50 years since Stephen Wexler’s essay, Practicing Law for Poor People, was published. By any reasonable measure, this has become and remains an iconic piece. Whether he is agreed with or disagreed with, Wexler arguments continue to define the terms of the debate about the proper role and responsibilities of those who practice law for poor people. Critics and jurists can be for or against Wexler’s account, but they cannot make serious headway without it. As such, Wexler’s essay deserve to be celebrated and showcased as it reaches its half-century milestone. However, his ideas and their informing assumptions …

Practising Law For Rich And Poor People: Towards A More Progressive Approach, Allan C. Hutchinson

Articles & Book Chapters

It is 50 years since Stephen Wexler’s essay, Practicing Law for Poor People, was published.By any reasonable measure, this has become and remains an iconic piece. Whether he is agreed with or disagreed with, Wexler’s arguments continue to define the terms of the debate about the proper role and responsibilities of those who practise law for poor people. Critics and jurists can be for or against Wexler’s account, but they cannot make serious headway without it. As such, Wexler’s essay deserves to be celebrated and showcased as it reaches its half-century milestone. However, his ideas and their informing assumptions about …

The Unintended Benefits Of Innovation, Ab Currie, Brandon D. Stewart

Canadian Forum on Civil Justice

The Legal Health Check-Up (LHC) attracted considerable attention among community legal clinics in Ontario beginning in 2013. The LHC began as a way for clinics to identify people experiencing legal and justice problems by partnering with various community groups to which people go for help with everyday problems. Using a questionnaire designed to draw out the legal aspects of everyday problems, community groups are able to exercise the gateway roles of problem spotting and referral by encouraging the people they assist to complete the check-up and contact the clinic for help with the legal aspects of their problems. The partnerships …

Measuring Impacts Of Legal Services – Bibliography, Network And Methodology, Trevor C. W. Farrow, Lisa Moore, Ab Currie

Canadian Forum on Civil Justice

The Canadian Forum on Civil Justice (CFCJ) was granted a Law Foundation of Ontario (LFO) Measuring Impacts and Progress: Small Grant ($25,000, 2019-2020). With the grant, the CFCJ – and its lead research team – created the “Measuring the Impact of Legal Service Interventions Project” (“MILSP”).

Measuring Impacts Of Legal Services – A Literature Review On Research Design And Methodology, Lisa Moore

Canadian Forum on Civil Justice

The purpose of this literature review is twofold. First, by exploring Canadian and international literature focussing on the measurement of justice, it is designed to support and promote much needed innovative, empirical, access to justice research. Specifically, it explores the use of longitudinal research methodologies and randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to gather data on outcomes and impacts in legal research and, to some extent, in disciplines outside of law. It is hoped that the bibliography, attached as Appendix I, will be useful for future research on these and related topics. Second, this literature review is drafted with a view towards …

Hryniak, The 2010 Amendments, And The First Stages Of A Culture Shift?: The Evolution Of Ontario Civil Procedure In The 2010s, Gerard Joseph Kennedy

PhD Dissertations

This dissertation investigates the effects of amendments to Ontarios Rules of Civil Procedure that came into effect on January 1, 2010 (the 2010 Amendments) and were subject to interpretation by the Supreme Court of Canada in a 2014 decision (Hryniak). Hryniak concerned summary judgment. However, the dissertation largely concentrates on the effects of Hryniak and the 2010 Amendments outside the summary judgment context, inquiring into whether Hryniaks call for a culture shift and the 2010 Amendments enshrinement of the principle of proportionality have had noticeable effects. It does this by analyzing three aspects of Canadian procedural law that were not …

Reflecting On Clinical Legal Education At The Indigenous Community Legal Clinic, Patricia Barkaskas, Melanie Alcorn, Ryan Adair, Kate Gotziaman, Jennifer Mackie, Madeleine Northcote, Victoria Wicks

Journal of Law and Social Policy

No abstract provided.

Accle Past, Present, And Future: Reflections From Accle’S Board Presidents, Martha Simmons, Doug Ferguson, Lisa Cirillo, Gemma Smyth

Journal of Law and Social Policy

No abstract provided.

Accle And Bill C-75: Implications For Student Legal Clinics & Communities In Canada, Jillian Rogin, Gemma Smyth, Johanna Dennie

Journal of Law and Social Policy

No abstract provided.

Confronting Accessibility In Clinical Legal Education: Human Rights Law And The Accommodation Of Law Students With Disabilities In External Placements, Roxanne Mykitiuk, C. Tess Sheldon

Journal of Law and Social Policy

Canadian law students with disabilities confront barriers in applying to and working in clinical placements. The article is motivated by practical questions about the scope of the duty to accommodate law students with disabilities in clinical education placements. It offers a legal analysis of the human rights accommodation framework in relation to clinical legal education placements. It also proposes criteria for a policy governing the accessibility of clinical legal placements.

Home, Precarious Home: A Year Of Housing Law Advocacy At A Saskatoon Legal Clinic, Sarah Buhler, Catriona Kaiser-Derrick

Journal of Law and Social Policy

This article discusses the impacts of housing law advocacy by clinical law students at Community Legal Assistance Services for Saskatoon Inner City (CLASSIC) through an analysis of CLASSIC’s 2017 closed housing law files. Our analysis shows that law student advocacy at the Office of Residential Tenancies (Saskatchewan’s housing law tribunal) is often associated with decisions in favour of tenants. This is consistent with studies that show that full legal representation is associated with improved litigation outcomes for clients. But our analysis also demonstrates the numerous limits to individual advocacy in housing law contexts. Our study contributes to the literature about …

A Snapshot Of The Law In The Streets: Reflections Of A Former Parkdale Academic Director, Sean Rehaag

Journal of Law and Social Policy

In this reflective essay, an Osgoode Hall Law School professor and former Academic Director at Parkdale Community Legal Services attempts to model the sort of critical self-reflection expected of law students enrolled in the Intensive Program in Poverty Law at PCLS. The essay does so by drawing lessons from a brief interaction that the author observed in the streets of the community served by PCLS and from the author’s responses to that interaction. The essay aims to highlight the value of reflection in experiential education pedagogies, in community lawyering practices, and in learning about law in context.

Just Clinics: A Humble Manifesto, Sarah Marsden

Journal of Law and Social Policy

Student legal clinics are poised at the intersection of the crisis in the availability of legal services and pressure on law schools to produce practice-ready graduates. In a neoliberal policy environment, which emphasizes market-based outcomes, commodifies services, and obscures the structural roots of inequality, it is tempting to measure the work of student legal clinics in terms of their efficiency in providing services to large numbers of clients. In this article, I argue that law school clinics should instead be recognized as sites of justice, moving beyond the construct of “numbers served.” Using the idea of “access to actual justice” …

Introduction, Sarah Buhler

Journal of Law and Social Policy

No abstract provided.

Neither Smarter Nor Stronger: Bill 161 Is A Step Backwards For Access To Justice And Community-Based Legal Services In Ontario, Amar Bhatia, Janet Mosher, Jillian A. Rogin, Gemma Smyth, Erin Sobat, David Wiseman

Commissioned Reports, Studies and Public Policy Documents

Schedule 16 of Bill 161, the Smarter and Stronger Justice Act, will replace, if passed, the Legal Aid Services Act, 1998 (LASA 1998) with a new Legal Aid Services Act, 2019 (LASA 2019).

The Bill, if passed, will have profoundly negative impacts on the clients and communities served by Ontario’s community legal clinics and community-driven boards. These clinics engage in “clinic law” through: a) the determination of their communities’ legal needs; b) the provision of individual and collective legal services to provide access to justice in numerous and intersecting areas of law; and c) the development and reform of …

Ewert V. Canada: Shining Light On Corrections And Indigenous People, Emily Hill, Jessica Wolfe

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

In Ewert v. Canada, the Supreme Court considered an Indigenous federal inmate’s claim that the continued use of actuarial tools to assess his risk was contrary to the Corrections and Conditional Release Act and sections 7 and 15 of the Charter. The case offers an important opportunity to consider issues of substantive equality; access to justice; and how Correctional Service Canada’s (CSC) current practices contribute to the larger problem of Indigenous alienation from the criminal justice system. Given the opaque nature of the correctional system, it is only through cases like Ewert that we get a glimpse into this type …

Continuum: Volume 44 (Winter 2020), Osgoode Hall Law School Of York University

Continuum: Osgoode Hall Law School Alumni Magazine

No abstract provided.

Osgoode Syllabus Of Courses And Seminars: 2020 - 2021, Office Of Student Services

Syllabi

No abstract provided.

Someone Out There Helping – Final Report Of The Wellcoms Mobile Van Project, Ab Currie

Canadian Forum on Civil Justice

In May 2019 the Legal Clinic of Guelph and Wellington County (the Guelph clinic) implemented a project to enhance legal services in rural Wellington County using a mobile service called the WellCoMs van (the van). The project addressed a long-standing need that had been recognized by the Guelph clinic since its establishment in 2002 to provide a good level of service to rural Wellington County.

Improving Access To Justice: Do Contingency Fees Really Work?, Allan C. Hutchinson

Articles & Book Chapters

While not touted as a universal panacea for access problems, contingency fees have received general praise as an important and justice-improving initiative. By back-loading the payment of legal fees, the assumption is that the interests of clients and litigants will be better served. I challenge that received wisdom. While the rise of contingency fee agreements between lawyers and clients has increased the number of people who can afford lawyers and make successful claims, the more challenging issue is whether that increase is being achieved at too high a price to clients and litigants – while more people are able to …

Building Community Connections: The Second Interim Report Of The Wellcoms Mobile Van Project, Ab Currie

Canadian Forum on Civil Justice

The WellCoMs mobile legal services van is a project being carried out by the Legal Clinic of Guelph and Wellington County to increase the level of service to rural areas of the county. The project is being funded by the Law Foundation of Ontario. This report comes at the end of the fourth month of a six-month project. It shows that the project has so far been highly successful in identifying unmet legal needs of people in the rural areas of Wellington County. At the end of October when street-side community visits by the van become problematic because of inclement …

Return On Investment In Civil Justice Services And Programs – Selected Annotated Bibliography Of Existing Research, Lisa Moore, Megan Phyper

Canadian Forum on Civil Justice

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Investing In Justice: A Literature Review In Support Of The Case For Improved Access, Lisa Moore, Trevor C. W. Farrow

Canadian Forum on Civil Justice

The focus of this report is return on investment (ROI) and social return on investment (SROI) research in justice. There is a growing access to justice crisis around the world. Notwithstanding the prevalence of legal problems in everyday life, people do not have adequate access to the justice information, resources and mechanisms that they need to navigate the complexities of law. This gap in access to justice negatively impacts everyone. It also comes with significant costs – to individuals and societies. Complicating this global crisis is a lack of understanding of the nature, extent, costs and potential solutions of and …

Investing In Justice: A Literature Review In Support Of The Case For Improved Access, Lisa Moore, Trevor C. W. Farrow

Commissioned Reports, Studies and Public Policy Documents

The focus of this report is return on investment (ROI) and social return on investment (SROI) research in justice.

There is a growing access to justice crisis around the world. Notwithstanding the prevalence of legal problems in everyday life, people do not have adequate access to the justice information, resources and mechanisms that they need to navigate the complexities of law. This gap in access to justice negatively impacts everyone. It also comes with significant costs – to individuals and societies.

Complicating this global crisis is a lack of understanding of the nature, extent, costs and potential solutions of and …

The Wellcoms Mobile Van Project: Building Paths To Justice In Rural Wellington County – First Interim Report, Ab Currie

Canadian Forum on Civil Justice

Since opening in 2002 the Legal Clinic of Guelph and Wellington County has found providing service to the rural part of Wellington County a challenge. Rural Wellington County encompasses approximately 2,657 square kilometers. There are several small communities spread throughout the County. Driving times between Guelph and some communities are 45 minutes to an hour. Public transportation between the small towns in rural Wellington County and the city of Guelph is poor or non-existent.

Wellcoms Wellington County Mobile Legal Service – Infographic, Legal Clinic Of Guelph And Wellington County

Canadian Forum on Civil Justice

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