Law Commons^™

Access To Justice And The Legal Profession: Three Questions, Trevor C. W. Farrow

Articles & Book Chapters

There is an increasing recognition – from all sectors of the legal system, including the former Chief Justice of Canada – that justice is in crisis. Even though we have some of the best judges, lawyers, and law schools in the world, delays in the civil, criminal, and family justice systems are massive and increasing. Costs of legal help are going up. An increasing number of people are trying to represent themselves. Legal aid is available only for the least well-off and only for a limited range of services. Many communities feel alienated and do not see themselves represented by …

Exploring The Importance Of Criminal Legal Aid: A Canadian Perspective, Trevor C. W. Farrow, Marcus Pratt

Articles & Book Chapters

There is a growing global recognition that, in order to address the current access to justice crisis, more research, together with a better understanding of data, is needed. This article, through an examination of existing legal aid research primarily in the area of criminal law, explores some of what we know and do not know about the relative benefits and costs of providing different kinds of criminal legal aid services. Although not a comprehensive review of all available research, this article identifies data strengths and gaps and the need for further research and reforms.

Introduction: Domestic Violence And Access To Justice Within The Family Law And Intersecting Legal Systems, Jennifer Koshan, Wanda Wiegers, Janet Mosher, Wendy Chan, Michaela J. Keet

Articles & Book Chapters

The articles in this collection explore the access to justice issues that arise for survivors of domestic violence in their encounters with Canada’s family law system. While family law and family dispute resolution processes are the central focus of the articles, three contributions also address family law's intersections with other legal domains (civil restraining orders, child welfare, and immigration). Common across the contributions is a desire to carefully interrogate the potential of law and legal processes to enhance—or conversely to undermine—the safety and well-being of survivors and their children.

Domestic Violence, Precarious Immigration Status, And The Complex Interplay Of Family Law And Immigration Law, Janet Mosher

Articles & Book Chapters

Survivors of domestic violence must frequently navigate multiple legal processes, as well as the various administrative systems that provide crucial supports and resources. For women with precarious immigration status, navigation is made all the more challenging not only because immigration and/or refugee law processes are added to the array of legal domains to be navigated, but because their access to supports and resources is both restrictive and in flux, shifting along with the changes in their immigration status.

Drawing from interviews with experienced lawyers and case law searches, I explore many of the intersections between family law and immigration law …

Ai And Legal Scholarship : Reflections On Evolution And Influences, Jonathon W. Penney

Articles & Book Chapters

Leading Legal Disruption: Artificial Intelligence and a Toolkit for Lawyers and the Law is designed to challenge lawyers with the practical implications that emerging technologies will have on delivering legal services and thinking about legal issues to navigate their digital transformation. By inviting thought leaders across the world and in different disciplines, ranging from privacy, contract law, and torts to governance and policy, this book goes beyond abstract and general philosophical observations on matters that concern practitioners. This practical approach has generated a wide range of global perspectives, which are refreshingly novel and timely for what are increasingly global issues. …

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 …

Narratives Of Self Government In Making The Case, Benjamin Berger

Articles & Book Chapters

This is a book about persuasion. In Making the Case: The Art of the Judicial Opinion, Paul Kahn draws the judicial opinion into the centre of our field of vision and invites us to join him in inquiring into the role that it plays shaping our legal and political communities, and in seeking to understand how it does its work. Ultimately, he shows that persuasion is at the heart of the judicial opinion and, with that, at the heart of the rule of law.

Canadian Civil Justice: Relief In Small And Simple Matters In An Age Of Efficiency, Jonathan Silver, Trevor C. W. Farrow

Articles & Book Chapters

Canada is in the midst of an access to justice crisis. The rising costs and complexity of legal services in Canada have surpassed the need for these services. This article briefly explores some obstacles to civil justice as well as some of the court-based programmes and initiatives in place across Canada to address this growing access to justice gap. In particular, this article explains the Canadian civil justice system and canvasses the procedures and programmes in place to make the justice system more efficient and improve access to justice in small and simple matters. Although this article does look briefly …

Diversity In The Boardroom: A Content Analysis Of Corporate Proxy Disclosures, Aaron A. Dhir

Articles & Book Chapters

My work in this field has focused on regulation by quota and regulation by disclosure. With regard to quotas, strikingly, the Norwegian law is not located in regulation that explicitly deals with human rights or equality issues; rather, it is found in the heart of the legal regime that gives life and personality to corporations – in Norwegian corporate law. I have conducted qualitative, interview-based research with Norwegian corporate directors, both men and women. It is only through understanding how the goals of the law have translated into the day-to-day existence of these individuals that we can begin to consider …

The Meaning Of 'Sphere Of Influence' In Iso 26000, Stepan Wood

Articles & Book Chapters

The relationship between a company’s influence and its social responsibilities is the subject of persistent controversy, manifested for example in the debate over the use of the concept of “sphere of influence” (SOI) to define the scope of a company’s social responsibility. Early drafts of the ISO 26000 guide on social responsibility employed SOI in this way, stating among other things that influence can give rise to responsibility and that generally, the greater the ability to influence, the greater the responsibility. The UN Special Representative on business and human rights, John Ruggie, rejected this use of SOI as ambiguous, misleading, …

Law As A Social System, By Niklas Luhmann, Peer Zumbansen

Articles & Book Chapters

No abstract provided.

Welfare Law, Welfare Fraud And The Moral Regulation Of The 'Never Deserving' Poor, Shelley A. M. Gavigan, Dorothy E. Chunn

Articles & Book Chapters

The dismantling and restructuring of Keynesian social security programmes have impacted disproportionately on women, especially lone parent mothers, and shifted public discourse and social images from welfare fraud to welfare as fraud, thereby linking poverty, welfare and crime. This article analyzes the current, inordinate focus on 'welfare cheats'. The criminalization of poverty raises theoretical and empirical questions related to regulation, control, and the relationship between them at particular historical moments. Moral regulation scholars working within post-structuralist and post-modern frameworks have developed an influential approach to these issues,however, we situate ourselves in a different stream of critical socio-legal studies that takes …

Globalization & The Law: An Introduction, Trevor C. W. Farrow, Sheilah L. Martin

Articles & Book Chapters

The focus of this special issue of the Alberta Law Review is globalization and the law. The purpose of this special issue is to look at ways that law is participating, and can participate, in the process of globalization. Given the social and political regulatory power of law- both domestic and international - there is no doubt that law can and should have a lot to say about how the process of globalization develops.

The Bank Manager Always Rings Twice: Stereotyping In Equity After Garcia, Richard Haigh, Samantha Hepburn

Articles & Book Chapters

Stereotyping is an inevitable part of human interaction. Everyone is judged, to some extent, according to individual perception, with reference to such factors as physical appearance, social position, marital status, language facility and ethnicity. It is not possible to eradicate stereotyping because it is a natural, automatic - sometimes instinctive - human response. In a legal context, however, there is a need for some mechanisms to control the degree to which stereotyping influences judicial decision-making so as to ensure that justice is administered in as neutral and impartial a manner as possible. Whether it be in the determination of facts …

Recent Trends In The Organization Of Legal Services, Frederick H. Zemans

Articles & Book Chapters

No abstract provided.

Education And Linguistic Security In The Charter, Denise Réaume, Leslie Green

Articles & Book Chapters

The authors provide an interpretive framework for minority language education rights as guaranteed in Section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. They argue that the purpose of such rights is to protect linguistic security. Attending to that value and to the text of the Charter, they seek to explain he nature and ground of the limitation which confines application of the right to circumstances in which numbers warrant. In doing so, they critically discuss a number of judgments bearing on the content of the right, the relevance of cost in securing the right, and the appropriate judicial …

The Determination Of Occupational Health And Safety Standards In Ontario 1860-1982: From Markets To Politics To...?, Eric Tucker

Articles & Book Chapters

The author reviews the historical development of the decision-making frameworks within which courts and the Legislature have made choices regarding the allocation of risks to health and safety in the workplace. Arguing that this development has been conditioned by the necessity of satisfying in a capitalist democracy conflicting demands to facilitate capital accumulation and to justify to the electorate the manner in which choices regarding the structure of the processes of production have been made, the author contends that recent pressure to adopt cost-benefit analysis to satisfy the demands of legitimation and accumulation, and challenges its adequacy as a normative …

Clinical Legal Education And Legal Aid - The Canadian Experience, Frederick H. Zemans, Lester Brickman

Articles & Book Chapters

Last fall CLEPR sponsored the first workshop of Canadian law schools devoted exclusively to the subject of clinical law training in Canada. The seminar was co-hosted by the McGill University and Osgoode Hall Law Schools and CLEPR, and was held at the Law School of McGill in Montreal, on November 29th and 30th, 1973. The workshop was organized and co-chaired by Professor Frederick H. Zemans of Osgoode Hall Law School and Professor Lester Brickman of the University of Toledo Law School, who are responsible for this report of the proceedings. A list of those attending is included at the conclusion …