CFCJ Senior Research Fellow Ab Currie in Rotterdam
In June 2026, Ab Currie, Senior Research Fellow at the Canadian Forum on Civil Justice, attended the semi-annual meeting of the Working Group on the Legal Professions, held at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, Netherlands.
The Working Group brings together researchers from around the world who study the legal professions and their role in justice systems. Its work spans a wide range of areas, including access to justice and legal aid, legal ethics, family law and policy, the judiciary, legal education, professional values and identities, gender and the legal professions, histories of the legal profession, and the relationship between lawyers and broader social and political systems.
Ab presented a paper titled Legal Representation and Court Efficiency, drawing on the CFCJ’s continuing research into representation, efficiency, and outcomes in Ontario’s criminal courts.
The paper examines how different forms and patterns of legal representation are associated with court efficiency, including the time between court appearances and the length of time required to reach disposition. The research is part of a broader CFCJ project exploring how access to legal help affects not only individual accused persons, but also the functioning of the justice system as a whole.
The response to the presentation was encouraging. Participants noted that the research makes a strong case for the importance of legal representation in supporting court efficiency and, by implication, for the continued importance of legal aid. Discussion also emphasized the need for further research into the benefits of representation for accused persons themselves, beyond its value to system efficiency.
For the CFCJ, this is an important point. Court efficiency matters, but access to justice cannot be measured by efficiency alone. The deeper question is whether people receive the right legal help, at the right time, in ways that support fairer processes, better outcomes, and a justice system that works more effectively for everyone who depends on it.
The CFCJ is grateful to Ab for representing this work internationally and for continuing to help advance a research agenda that connects empirical evidence, legal aid, court administration, and people-centred access to justice.