Ontario Legal System in Crisis

Hosted by the Ottawa Citizen's Matthew Pearson

Admission

Free

Saturday

Oct , 2013

2:00pm

Eastern

Knox Presbyterian Church

120 Lisgar Street (at Elgin) • Ottawa

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Is the justice system in Ontario broken? Is it doomsaying to use the term 'crisis'?

We turn to three prominent and innovative leaders from the legal community to 'lift the hood up', and take a look at the symptoms and solutions to the dysfunction plaguing litigation today. In doing so, they take a sober and critical look at their own industry and invite participation in the discussion.

We can no longer deny that the price of accessing justice is too high for the vast majority of people in society. If it happened tomorrow, could you afford to pay the legal fees associated with a garden variety civil lawsuit brought against you? What about a divorce or family estate dispute? For most people, any brush with the law can break their banks and threaten their psychological well-being.

An exponentially growing number of people are simply turning away from lawyers to handle their legal troubles. Instead they forage for themselves in an unforgiving and rigid system beset by a labyrinth of procedural hurdles and an increasingly impatient gatekeepers. Is this access to justice in any meaningful sense?

Developed by: Kristopher Dixon, Williams McEnery LLP

Books by participating authors available on-site. A booksigning will follow each event.

The Authors

Dr. Julie Macfarlane

Dr. Julie Macfarlane is Professor at the Faculty of Law of the University of Windsor and Professor of the Practice at the Kroc Institute of International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame. She has researched and written extensively on dispute resolution and in particular the role of lawyers. Her bestselling 2008 book The New Lawyer : How Settlement is Transforming the Practice of Law (University of British Colombia Press) is based on hundreds of personal interviews with lawyers and their lawyers. Julie is also the editor of Dispute Resolution : Readings and Case Studies (Emond Montgomery) a student text used widely in ADR courses in Canadian and US law schools which was published in its 3rd edition in 2010. In 2012 Julie published Islamic Divorce in North America : Choosing a Shari’a Path in a Secular Society (Oxford University Press) based on four years of empirical research. Julie’s most recent research project is with self-represented litigants in family and civil court in three Canadian provinces (The National Self-Represented Litigants Research Study; Final Report May 2013 available at www.representing-yourself.com) This work is continuing as the National Self-Represented Litigants Project with a mandate for continuing research, resource development and promoting dialogue and collaboration among all justice system actors and users in response to the enormous rise in the number of people representing themselves. The new site is about to go “live” and can be accessed at http://melissapillon.com/dev/representing-yourself/ Julie has won numerous awards for her work including the International Academy of Mediators’ Award of Excellence (2005) Scholar of the Year at the University of Windsor (2011), and the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding Scholar of the Year (2011).

Mitch Kowalski

Mitch Kowalski is a legal futurist, innovative thinker, writer, speaker and lawyer. He is the author of the critically acclaimed, ABA best-seller, “Avoiding Extinction: Reimagining Legal Services for the 21st Century.” He is an internationally sought-after speaker on legal services innovation and blogs regularly on legal matters for The National Post’s blog, The Legal Post, and on innovation in legal services for Slaw.ca. He teaches innovation in law at the University of Ottawa Law School. In 2012, he was selected as one of the Fastcase Top 50 Global Legal Innovators. For much of his 22-year legal career, he practiced law with the Toronto office of international legal giant Baker & McKenzie, before moving to one of the oldest, mid-sized law firms in Toronto: Aylesworth LLP which later became Dickinson Wright LLP. He also served as in-house counsel for the City of Toronto and had a business role with First Canadian Title. His experience with a wide variety of legal service providers gives him a unique perspective on their operations. Mitch also currently maintains a boutique law practice in Toronto.

Thomas G Conway

Thomas G Conway practices civil litigation in Ottawa at Cavanagh LLP. Since June 2012, he has held the office of Treasurer of the Law Society of Upper Canada, the highest elected position at the Law Society. The Law Society of Upper Canada regulates 45,000 lawyers and 5000 independent paralegals licensees in the public interest. In 2007, The National Post named Tom Conway as one of Canada's top corporate and commercial litigation lawyer's. Since 2009, he has been ranked by his peers in The Best Lawyers in Canada as one of Canada's best lawyers in corporate and commercial litigation. In 2013, Canadian Lawyer identified him as one of the top five most influential lawyers in Canada in the category of change maker and one of the top 25 most influential lawyers in Canada overall. As the head of the Law Society of Upper Canada, Tom Conway is leading a major institutional reform to better align the Law Society's focus and resources on facilitating access to justice for all Ontarians.