When I began working at the Winkler Institute in April, I knew very little
about justice innovation.
Not exact matches
There's a lot more to say
about all this —
about why
justice demands wider distributism,
about the possible mechanisms of more just distribution, and
about whether those mechanisms would interfere with the very
innovation that gave us, for example, computers in the first place.
The teachers unions in those cities, who profess to be all
about the kids, social
justice and progressivism, pound the table and insist that our outdated 19th Century Prussian - style zip - code mandated school system continue without any
innovation, just more money.
About The Skylark Foundation Based in Los Angeles, The Skylark Foundation is committed to encouraging
innovation, striving for social
justice and supporting diversity.
Jean is passionate
about reimagining the legal industry through
innovation, culture change and improving access to
justice.
We need more prospective strategic thinking
about law coupled with more deliberately organised
justice innovation.
My columns are largely
about international trends and
innovation around
justice delivery at the national level.
In this episode we speak with the co-author of Rebooting
Justice, Ben Barton,
about how making legal technology and
innovation a priority in law schools can help shape a market that benefits both lawyers and their potential clients.
In my last post for Slaw I wrote
about the importance of creating the conditions for
justice innovation by building the skills needed to work in multidisciplinary teams and collaborate rather than «consult» with
justice system users.
If you missed the first part, my premise is simply this: I hear a lot
about the need for greater and greater degrees of
innovation in legal technology if we are ever to close the
justice gap.
You've raised important concerns here
about transforming access to
justice needs through
innovation; you ask whether
innovation will be inevitably
about capturing the high end of the legal market, at the continuing expense of low - income and middle - income communities.
Sebastian Ko, Regional Director and Senior Legal Counsel of integrated legal technology provider Epiq, believes
innovation in law will bring
about transformational change and solve long unresolved problems in the law, such as access to
justice.
He's strongly passionated
about innovation in legal services, legal services design and
justice access and thinks that innovvation and digital transformation of the legal and
justice are great driver for development and competitiveness and will lead to a real revolution in the approach of all stakeholders to the legal services world.
Legal Action Group released a new report,
Justice in freefall, analysing the latest legal aid statistics from the Ministry of
Justice and recommending immediate commencement of the LASPO review, reinvestment of the civil legal aid budget underspend in an
innovation fund and a public information campaign
about what problems legal aid is available for.
Gen Y ’ ers should use their connections and knowledge to bring the legal profession into the 21st century while bringing
about innovation in the fight for increased access to
justice.
Read on to learn more
about her experience being introduced to, and learning
about,
justice innovation.
As I reflect on the work that I have done at the Winkler Institute, I realize how much I have learned
about the Institute's mission of practicing and raising the profile of
justice innovation in Canada.
The JDP is a week - long workshop for current post secondary students where students work in a hands - on environment to learn
about innovation, its various tools and methods, and how these tools are being applied in the
justice sector.
In our multi-disciplinary teams, we spent the fourth day brainstorming and designing prototypes of legal
innovations, including an online dispute resolution platform to resolve claims under $ 2000 outside of the formal
justice system, a document exchange and file management system, and a Pokemon GO inspired smartphone app to disguise learning
about the legal system in a fun and interactive way.
I won't go into the details of that workshop as it has been previously written
about here, but, in short, our stakeholders (and now our partners) were interested in learning
about the
innovation tools they might use to help them respond to the needs of users in the family
justice system.
The big barriers to
innovation seem to be (in no particular order): lack of data
about the needs and experiences of users of
justice systems; the natural monopoly of judges and lawyers; the challenge of developing the smart public - private partnerships that
innovation needs; limited or no access to finance.
Here on Slaw, for example, Nicole Aylwin wrote last month
about taking social labs approach to solving access to foster
innovation in
justice systems.
He writes, speaks, and podcasts
about legal
innovation, the legal technology industry, access to
justice, and more.
In my last post in this
innovation series, I want to talk
about the «art of questioning» and how asking the right questions can help us become more empathetic, creative and successful
justice innovators.
As far as access to
justice is concerned, it's important to think
about a major straight jacket on
innovation: funding for new IT systems has to come from partners» debt.
With Congress in gridlock over proposed patent reform legislation and four
Justices concerned
about the potential threat of both patent trolls and business methods to
innovation, you can expect many more petitions to the Supreme Court to address these issues.
Perhaps as Canadians the way that we can determine if a matter is more
about politics than pure
justice, is when the definition of relatively common words such as: «
innovation» or «office» is seen to be as confusing to those who need to interpret these words to their benefit, as the meaning of the word «lie» can be — when someone has been caught in one.