Law Commons^™

Legal Representation For Complainants Of Sexual Violence In The Criminal Justice System: A Proposal To Advance Women's Equality, Karen M. Bellehumeur

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Very few survivors of sexual violence choose to engage the Canadian criminal justice system despite the fact that we expect law to be an effective tool to combat sexual violence. Since the vast majority of sexual violence survivors are female, the criminal justice system is failing women. This failure is largely because of the harm it causes by re-victimizing sexual assault complainants. Much of that harm arises from misunderstandings about trauma and from the existence of rape myths and gender stereotypes.. I argue that the criminal justice system’s treatment of female sexual violence complainants violates their section 7 and 15 …

Into The "Vortex Of Legal Precision": Access To Justice, Complexity, And The Canadian Tax System, Colin Jackson

PhD Dissertations

This thesis is an exploration of access to justice issues in the Canadian tax system. Drawing on the work of Roderick Macdonald, it argues for a broad conception of access to justice based on the empowerment of individuals in all of the sites, processes, institutions where law is made, administered, and applied. It argues that tax law shows the usefulness of this comprehensive approach to access to justice. Using the comprehensive approach to access to justice, the thesis goes on to argue that legal complexity should be seen as an important access to justice issue in tax law. It lays …

Licensing Paralegals To Practice Law: A Path Toward Bridging The Justice Gap In Minnesota, Conner Suddick

Departmental Honors Projects

There are few legal avenues for low-income and other marginalized groups in the United States to seek civil justice. A lack of legal assistance in civil issues can be detrimental to a person’s health and wellbeing. Given this reality, the legal profession must broaden its capacity to serve these needs, and one path is to embrace the aid of paralegals. In 2016, the legal community of Minnesota had conversations about whether the state should provide limited licenses to paralegals. To study models from across the country, the Minnesota State Bar Association (MSBA) formed the Alternative Legal Models Task Force. In …

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 …

Having A Say: Democracy, Access To Justice And Self-Represented Litigants, Jennifer Ann Leitch

PhD Dissertations

Access to Justice is one of the most contested issues on the law-and-society agenda. There is a long-standing exchange over its meaning, objectives, and success. Beneath that engagement, there is a deeper and more basic debate about the overall ambitions for access to justice: is the goal to improve peoples access to the legal process and generate more positive outcomes (the practical thesis), or to enhance peoples participation and ultimately their ability to affect justice as an end in itself (the democratic thesis)? This thesis adopts the latter approach.

The plight of self-represented litigants (SRLs) offers a revealing glimpse into …