Delighted to announce the publication of Child Support Law in Canada on CanLII: https://canlii.ca/t/7nsqj. This is the first and only open-access, comprehensive guide to the law of child support across the country. It has been such a pleasure to work with Prof. Shelley Kierstead of York University – Osgoode Hall Law School as co-editors of this project. (And thanks also to University of Windsor Faculty of Law for letting me work on interesting projects that don’t generate any SSHRC money or peer-reviewed publications 😁 )
But the “stars of this show” are our incredible chapter authors, some of the finest family lawyers in Canada: Frances E. Chapman, Katherine Cooligan, Duncan Dagley, Jasmine Dong, Denniel Duong, Sarah Harland, Haley Hrymak, Kiarash Izadifar, Georgialee Lang BA JD FCIArb, Elysia Martini, Ken Nathens, Kaylee Ness, Kayleigh Pink, Vanessa Lam, Irfan Reayat, & Rebecca Winninger.
Please spread the word, and keep Child Support Law in Canada https://canlii.ca/t/7nsqj in mind for all your CS-related legal knowledge needs!
Category: Academic Publications
The Purpose of Civil Procedure
Civil procedure should be “just, speedy, and inexpensive,” according to the purposive rules found at the outset of many procedural codes. However, this formula creates as many questions as it answers. What does it mean for procedure to be “just?” What sorts of costs are relevant when considering how “inexpensive” procedure is? How should rule-makers and adjudicators compromise between justice, speediness, and inexpensiveness when these goals are in tension and resources are scarce?
This article offers a normative account of civil procedure’s purpose. The goal is to identify the warrant for“just, speedy, and inexpensive,” and then to explain and refine it. I argue that welfarism, a general normative theory of public policy, is implicit in modern civil procedure. Welfarism is the idea that public policy decisions should always seek to optimize welfare for all affected individuals. I defend welfarism as a theoretical basis for reforming civil procedure and resolving its hard cases, and propose three refinements to civil procedure’s purposive rules to give better effect to it.
Download: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=6710042
Let’s Look Before We Leap: Why Ontario’s Civil Rules Review Needs a Research Phase
Advocates’ Quarterly, December 2025.
Downloasd at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4907051
The Civil Rules Review (CRR) has proposed a thorough rewrite of Ontario’s Rules of Civil Procedure. The goal is to make civil litigation speedier, more affordable, and less complex. The CRR’s April 2025 Consultation Paper makes dozens of reform proposals, affecting every major phase of the litigation process. This short paper argues that the leaders of Ontario’s civil justice system should take the time to look before they leap. To implement changes by the end of 2025, as proposed by the original Terms of Reference for the Civil Rules Review, would be dangerously and unnecessarily premature. The consultation phase (currently just 10 weeks) should be extended, and a methodologically rigorous empirical evaluation should be conducted. This evaluation should be informed by a solid theoretical understanding of civil litigation’s benefits and costs; the middle section of this paper briefly sketches such a theory.
Does Lady Justice Need a Sword?
Review of Benjamin Perrin, Indictment: the Criminal justice System on Trial. Toronto: AEVO UTP, 2023.
By Noel Semple[1]
Lady Justice can often be found, in statute form, in or near courthouses. This symbol of the Western justice system is blindfolded to show neutrality. She carries a scale, to weigh facts and arguments fairly. Sometimes she also holds an olive leaf, to symbolize mercy and healing. A sword is the other accessory that Lady Justice invariably carries. The sword is a ubiquitous part of this symbol because most people believe that justice in general, and criminal justice in particular, necessarily involves inflicting pain upon wrongdoers.
Benjamin Perrin’s provocative new book Indictment is a call to leave the sword of justice in its scabbard. Perrin, a Professor at the University of British Columbia Faculty of Law, argues that Canada’s criminal justice system is “fundamentally flawed,” because its objectives cannot be met by the painful and coercive techniques that it uses.[2] Perrin offers a new vision for criminal justice based on healing trauma, recentering victims, abolishing traditional prisons, and empowering indigenous Nations.
Continue reading “Does Lady Justice Need a Sword?”Tribunals for Access to Justice in Canada
Forthcoming, Canadian Bar Review (Spring 2025)
Tribunals have great potential to improve access to justice in Canada, and the goal of this article is to better understand this potential. It begins by defining “tribunals” and “access to justice,” the key concepts of this article. Because tribunals and trial courts are functional alternatives for the resolution of many legal disputes, the article first reviews the merits of Canada’s trial-level courts in terms of creating access to justice. It then turns to tribunals, reviewing some objective evidence of tribunal excellence in this regard.
Four key attributes of tribunals make them advantageous alternatives to trial-level courts for the accessible and just resolution of many types of legal dispute. First, tribunals are specialized instead of having general jurisdiction. Second, tribunals apply teamwork to dispute-resolution, instead of assigning all responsibility to individual adjudicators. Third, healthy forms of accountability are easier to establish in tribunals than they are in courts. This includes accountability of individual members to the tribunal and accountability of the tribunal to the legislature that created it. Finally, tribunals can be designed for maximal performance in creating access to justice, by contrast to courts which, for good reasons, resist design or reform efforts coming from outside themselves.
The final Part of the article argues that tribunals can advance access to justice not only by taking on dispute-resolution work that courts would otherwise do, but also by offering authoritative legal vindication of rights that would otherwise be abandoned, or resolved in a completely privatized way. The tribunal promise of accessible adjudication can also be expected to improve the quality of settlements, in terms of upholding parties’ substantive legal rights.
Full text (draft) : Tribunals for Access to Justice in Canada
