News and Views Issue 2: Fall 1999
Civil Justice Reform Update
As was recommended in the Canadian Bar Association Systems of Civil Justice Task Force Report, mediation and alternative dispute resolution are at the heart of a significant portion of the civil justice initiatives being pursued in Canada (see Recommendations 1, 2, 3, 5, 13, 26(a), 27, 36, 38, 39 and 49). The Task Force Report discussed the need for a review of legal education as part of the system-wide change needed to ensure that the vision of a multi-option civil justice system for the 21st century be realized. Recommendation 49 proposes that:
- The CBA and the Canadian Council of Law Deans form a joint multi-disciplinary committee to consider and propose a comprehensive legal education plan to assist in civil justice reform for the twenty-first century, and
- the plan address the whole spectrum of service providers and the full range of educational opportunities.
This joint multi-sectoral Committee was formed in the winter of 1998. The
Committee comprises the following people: Professor Kathleen Delaney-Beausoleil
(Laval University), Justice Thomas Cromwell (NS Court of Appeal), Dean Lewis Klar
(University of Alberta), Mr. Thomas Macdonald (Blois, Nickerson & Bryson - Chair,
Special Committee on Systems of Civil Justice), Professor Moira McConnell (Committee
Chair, Dalhousie Law School), Professor Sylvia McMechan (Royal Roads University),
Alan Treleaven (President, Association for Continuing Legal Education). The Project
Officer is Heather Nowlan of The CBA.
The Committee has focused its attention on dispute resolution education, which
it sees as a key feature of the Task Force Report. In the fall of 1998,
the Committee sent out a survey to legal and dispute resolution educators across
Canada (pre-law, law school, Bar admission, CLE for lawyers, judicial CLE and
dispute resolution programs) to learn whether dispute settlement skills and conflict
analysis are taught in the continuum of legal education and, if so, at what point.
The Committee also reviewed similar studies from other jurisdictions. An extensive
Discussion Paper containing the Committee's proposed recommendations is being
finalized and will be available in both French and English either at the CBA annual
meeting in Edmonton this August, or shortly thereafter. The Discussion Paper will
be also be posted on the the CBA internet site (http://www.cba.org/)
and the Forum's internet site (http://www.cfcj-fcjc.org).
The Committee will prepare its Final Report in light of the comments it receives
on this Paper. It is expected that a Final Report will be available by early January
2000.