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- Title
Taking a Shot: Access to Justice, Judging and eCourt.
- Authors
Williams, R. James
- Abstract
Access to Justice issues have shown us that our traditional adversarial dispute resolution model is slow, costly, divisive and complex ‐ for both self represented litigants and those with lawyers. Addressing these issues through the provision of information to litigants has not been enough. Family Justice reports speak of the need for "culture change" and judicial leadership in affecting change. Judges have created options to the traditional adversarial model with processes such as Settlement Conferences, Binding Settlement Conferences, Informal Trials and Case Management. COVID19 has "forced" courts to embrace Virtual and telephone proceedings. There are now choices in Court based, Judicially‐run dispute resolution processes. Nova Scotia's Supreme Court, Family Division has a process "add" ‐ an eCourt Pilot instituting an electronic, chat‐based Court process that gives litigants and Judges a new "choice" of process. Practitioner's Key Points: The traditional adversary system cannot adequately address access to Justice issues such as slowness, cost, divisiveness, and complexity.Access to Justice issues exist for litigants with and without lawyers.Judges should be leaders in change.Case management and new Judicial dispute resolution processes (such as Settlement Conferences, Binding Settlement Conferences, Informal Trials) have been and should be part of the change needed to address Access to Justice issues.Nova Scotia has embarked on an eCourt Pilot ‐ a Judge led chat room form of hearing to add another choice of process to the options available for addressing Judicial Family Law Dispute resolution.
- Subjects
ACCESS to justice; INTERNET in legal services; COVID-19 pandemic; LEGAL self-representation
- Publication
Family Court Review, 2021, Vol 59, Issue 2, p278
- ISSN
1531-2445
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/fcre.12574