Big Box Law
By: Farrah Rajan Walmart has brokered a deal with Axess Law to provide legal services in select Walmart locations. The founders of Axess Law are hoping to promote access to justice by alleviating the fear…
access to justice
The Innovative Advocate: Canada’s Legal Future
The way legal services are delivered in Canada is changing.  Increased competition and a demand for lower prices has pressured law firms to slow hiring and deliver their services more efficiently.  After finishing my first year at Queen’s…
SCC on Funding Orders
Funding orders must be exceptional, says the Supreme Court: ‘For the first time the Supreme Court has ruled that superior courts are empowered to order governments to fund public interest litigation before statutory courts and…
Access to Legal Services: Lessons from the Medical Profession (Part 3 of 3)
This is the final instalment of a three-part series on access to legal services. In Part 1, I argued that the crisis facing access to legal services is precipitated by a fundamental mismatch between supply…
Access to Legal Services: Lessons from the Medical Profession (Part 2 of 3)
This is Part 2 of a three-part series on the topic of access to legal services. In Part 1, I argued that the traditional approach to ensuring access to legal services (that is, increasing the…
Access to Legal Services: Lessons from the Medical Profession (Part 1 of 3)
In this three-part series, I make the case that the legal profession needs nurses. More to the point, we need to create new categories of legal professionals who are not lawyer, but who are qualified to provided limited legal advice and even representation within a well-defined scope. These non-lawyer professionals would be regulated by a system similar to that of colleges or associations of nurses in the health industry. In Part 1 of the series, I explore the shortcomings of the “traditional” approach to promoting access to legal services (that is, increasing the capacity of legal aid and pro bono). I argue that these approaches are cost-prohibitive from a government viewpoint and will therefore prove inadequate in addressing the underlying shortage of lawyers.
Legal Aid to get a much-needed funding boost
After years of neglect, the Legal Aid system in Ontario has been scheduled for an overhaul. On Tuesday, Attorney General Chris Bentley will announce $150 million in new funding for Legal Aid, as well as…
Access to justice and elected judges (conclusion)
(Part 1) So anyone demanding the election of judges should understand this: there is a conflict between accountability and impartiality. It’s often hard to get the judges both to be independent and to answer to…
Access to justice and elected judges
Every once in a while, a big legal case takes over the press. Murder, corruption, shareholder disputes, and Canadians stuck abroad eventually come before our courts. And when judges hand down their decisions, some people…
More on Omar Khadr
Report slaps CSIS over Khadr
B.C. government announces access-to-justice reforms
B.C. civil, family courts reformed (post sponsored by advicescene.com)
Self-represented litigant punished for a ‘delaying tactic’
Father ordered to pay $20,000 punishment (post sponsored by advicescene.com)