Category: Access to Justice

Three Routes to Justice for All

Noel Semple

Lawyers Weekly, October 30, 2015.

Full text: https://www.thelawyersdaily.ca/articles/2204/the-three-routes-to-justice-for-all

The LSUC needs to expand the scope of paralegals, online information and ABS.

A statutory mandate was given to the Law Society of Upper Canada almost ten years ago: “Act so as to facilitate access to justice for the people of Ontario.” How effectively has it been carried out?

Undeniably, access to justice is now taken seriously at Osgoode Hall. Recent initiatives such as the treasurer’s action group on access to justice are encouraging to those who want all Ontarians to enjoy the law’s benefits.

While great strides have been made, a great distance remains to be travelled. Three policy areas — paralegal practice, online information, and alternative business structures — illustrate both how far the law society has come and how far it must still go.
Continue reading “Three Routes to Justice for All” →

ABS: What Horrors Within?

Noel Semple

Canadian Bar Association National Magazine, December 4, 2014.

“Professor, I was wondering if you could tell us anything about the Chamber of Secrets,” said Hermione in a clear voice… “What exactly do you mean by the ‘horror within’ the Chamber?”

“That is believed to be some sort of monster…” said Professor Binns in his dry, reedy voice.

-J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

An alternative business structure (ABS) is a law firm that includes non-lawyers as investors, managers, or partners. Such arrangements are effectively forbidden throughout Canada today. However prominent voices, such as the CBA Legal Futures Initiative, are now calling for regulators to roll back these rules and welcome ABS firms to our legal landscape.

A future with ABS is a chamber of secrets, rumoured to contain both glittering treasures and savage monsters. The treasures may include enhanced access to justice for clients,and new innovation and flexibility for legal professionals. The value of these treasures cannot be known unless and until we roll back the regulation currently blocking the entrance to the chamber.

However many are reluctant to do so, because two monsters are also said to reside in the chamber. One of these beasts, it is said, eats legal ethics by corrupting lawyers. The other allegedly eats lawyers themselves, by stealing their clients.

While the treasures in the chamber are uncertain, the two monsters are entirely figmentary. Our regulators therefore have nothing to lose–and possibly a great deal to gain—from opening the door to alternative business structures

Full text here.

 

The Cost of Seeking Civil Justice in Canada

Noel Semple

(2016) Canadian Bar Review, Vol. 93.3, pp. 639-673.

How much does it cost individual Canadians to seek civil justice? This article compiles empirical data about the monetary, temporal, and psychological costs confronting individual justice-seekers in this country. The article then suggests that analysis of private costs can improve access to justice in two ways. First, it can help public sector policy-makers to reduce these costs. Second, it can help lawyers and entrepreneurs to identify new, affordable ways to reduce the costs that are most onerous to individuals with different types of civil legal need.

Online: https://cbr.cba.org/index.php/cbr/article/view/4358

This research was the subject of an article in the Canadian Bar Association National Magazine. Online: CBA National Magazine. Link here.

Personal Plight Legal Practice and Tomorrow’s Lawyers

Noel Semple

(2014) Journal of the Legal Profession, Vol. 39, pp. 25-47.

Commentators have predicted that computerization and off-shoring will steadily undermine demand for lawyers in North America and Europe. This essay argues that this prediction is not equally valid for all types of legal practice. Personal plight practice — in which lawyers help individuals and small businesses involved in legal disputes — is largely sheltered from both computerization and off-shoring. The article calls for the profession and legal educators to open doors between tomorrow’s lawyers and personal plight legal practice. Doing so will not only address the economic insecurity confronting tomorrow’s lawyers, but also enhance access to justice.

This article was the basis of a December 12, 2014 post at the Canadian Association of Law Teachers blog.

Full article found online here.

Depending on the Kindness of Strangers: Access to Civil Justice in Canada

Noel Semple

(2013) Legal Ethics, Vol. 16, No. 2, pp. 373-376.

‘Abysmal’ was the word used to describe the accessibility of Canadian civil justice in a recent major report. Access to justice is simultaneously a social problem, a professional obligation for the legal profession, and a market opportunity for law firms. Are there any signs of significant progress on any of these fronts? This short Correspondent’s report will review recent Canadian efforts to connect people of modest means with the expert legal services they urgently need.

Full text: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2385989

Access to Justice: Is Legal Services Regulation Blocking the Path?

Noel Semple

(2013) International Journal of the Legal Profession, Vol. 21, No. 2, pp. 267-283 (Peer-reviewed).

Is legal services regulation exacerbating North America’s access to justice crisis? Does regulatory preservation of a unified legal profession, and insulation of that profession from non-lawyer influence, make it more difficult for Americans and Canadians to meet their legal needs? This article begins by showing that high prices and lack of innovation have placed expert legal services beyond the reach of many people in English-speaking North America. It then develops a theory of how these problems might be compounded by two distinctive features of legal services regulation in this region: unification of the legal profession, and insulation of law firms from non-lawyer investment and leadership. Comparisons are drawn with England & Wales and Australia, jurisdictions which have significantly liberalized their legal services regulatory regimes. The article concludes that, although regulatory liberalization is not a magic bullet for the accessibility of justice, there is strong evidence of a link between regulation and access. North American lawyer regulators need to understand and work to reduce the effects of their policies on the accessibility of justice.

Full text: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2303987