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Episode 87: 7 Changes for Access to Justice

Access to Justice, Family Law – Jun 2024

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Episode 87: 7 Changes for Access to Justice
Broadcast Date: June 13, 2024

Summary

Discover the seven key changes to improve New Brunswick’s justice system discussed at the 2023 Access to Justice Summit.

The New Brunswick Access to Justice Summit, Digital Transformation: Putting People at the Heart of the Justice System, held in August 2023 at the University of New Brunswick (UNB) Faculty of Law, brought stakeholders from the province’s justice community together to discuss changes required to the New Brunswick family law system and the role of digital technology in the justice system in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In this episode, Nathan Afilalo, Argyri Panezi and Daniel J. Escott reflect on the writing of their co-authored report “Access to Justice Summit: The New Brunswick Report – Digital Transformation: Putting People at the Heart of the System.” They share their thoughts on the process of writing this report and present the seven desired outcomes (“7 Changes”) that were identified at the Summit.

The Summit launched an action-plan and longer-term research plan to be led by the UNB Law Legal Innovation Laboratory in collaboration with local stakeholders and community. The Legal Innovation Laboratory will undertake a series of empirical studies to help inform future reform initiatives and will plan and host subsequent Summits inviting members of the public to participate in the design of justice reforms.

2024 Summit: The University of New Brunswick is currently organizing the 2024 Access to Justice Summit, which will take place on August 26 and 27 at the UNB Faculty of Law. Working themes are bilingual case-management and electronic filing. https://www.unb.ca/fredericton/law/research/innovationlab.html

This report has been written collaboratively by CIAJ and the University of New Brunswick Legal Innovation Laboratory.

Guests

Nathan is a graduate of McGill’s BCL/LLB program and was CIAJ’s first articling student. Trained in both Civil and Common Law, he has been called to the Ontario Bar in 2020. He has clerked at the Montreal Municipal Court, as well as involved himself in Montreal-based access to justice organizations such as The Mile End Legal Clinic and the Centre for Research-Action and Race Relations. Nathan was a lawyer at CIAJ from 2018 to 2024, where he conducted legal research on our national discussions on key issues, wrote reports and helped develop CIAJ initiatives. He is now a lawyer for the Grand Council of the Crees (Eeyou Istchee) / Cree Nation Government.

Daniel is a lawyer called to the bar in Ontario in 2023, and served as a Researcher for the Canadian Institute for the Administration of Justice (CIAJ) with a focus on digitization and legal process design. He also sat as Chair of the CIAJ National Student Committee. Originally from Newfoundland and Labrador, Daniel has a keen interest in access to justice and the use of technology in law.

During his legal studies, Daniel joined the CIAJ’s National Student Committee as a member in 2020. Throughout the COVID-19 Pandemic, he volunteered with and was eventually elected to the Board of Directors for the National Canadian Lawyers’ Initiative, providing and supporting pro bono legal research and services through the use of remote access and digital communication technologies. Daniel also helped coordinate the University of New Brunswick Faculty of Law’s community tax clinic.

Before law school, Daniel worked in Ottawa as the Digital and Social Media Lead for Canada’s Minister of Science and Sport. He served five years with the Royal Canadian Air Force, retiring as a Lieutenant in 2018. Daniel received his law degree from the University of New Brunswick in 2022, and an undergraduate degree in business administration from the Memorial University of Newfoundland in 2018.

Dr. Panezi joined UNB Faculty of Law in 2023, after being awarded the Canada Research Chair in Digital Information Law and Policy (Tier 2). She holds a law degree from the University of Athens, an LL.M. from Harvard Law School and a Ph.D. from the European University Institute.

She is also an affiliated member of the Digital Civil Society Lab at Stanford University, where she conducted post-doctoral work, at the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence for Law and Automation (Lawtomation) at IE Law School where she taught since 2019, and recently at the Canadian Institute for Cybersecurity (CIC) at the University of New Brunswick.

Argyri’s research explores the effects that disruptive technologies have on citizens, institutions and the law. She has been writing about legal challenges associated with the digital transformation of cultural heritage institutions, the digital transformation of justice institutions, Law and AI and about privacy challenges in the Web3 era.

At UNB Law she directs the recently established Legal Innovation Laboratory. Together with her research team, she studies participatory policy-making methods in e-justice design to enhance access to justice for underserved communities, especially in remote and rural areas. The team focuses on bilingual and multilingual communities in the Atlantic Canada region. They are also exploring how to resolve some of the tensions that are arising from the digitization of justice systems, such as privacy, security and accessibility.

Related Documentation

In All Fairness is a Canadian Institute for the Administration of Justice podcast channel welcoming representatives from the legal community and exploring how we can all contribute to improving the administration of justice in Canada. Legal professionals will benefit from informed discussions on key issues, essential knowledge and insights to strengthen their practice.

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