Instructing Judges: Ethical Experience and Educational Technique

Most professional responsibility textbooks do not discuss judicial conduct, and not surprisingly, many judges find themselves unprepared for the ethical dilemmas they face when they make the transition from partisan advocate to neutral arbiter. Gray and Zemans discuss the nine-topic curriculum for judicial educators to use to teach judicial ethics to judges at programs for new judges, continuing judicial education courses and judicial conferences

Instructing Judges: Ethical Experience and Educational Technique

Most professional responsibility textbooks do not discuss judicial conduct, and not surprisingly, many judges find themselves unprepared for the ethical dilemmas they face when they make the transition from partisan advocate to neutral arbiter. Gray and Zemans discuss the nine-topic curriculum for judicial educators to use to teach judicial ethics to judges at programs for new judges, continuing judicial education courses and judicial conferences

Making the Justice System Balance: Beyond the Zuber Report

The civil and criminal justice systems rely on a highly individualized dispute resolution process in which each litigant must both prosecute and present his or her own case with limited intervention by the court system and no direct involvement by the judiciary. Neil Brooks has noted that the adversarial system reflects the political and economic ideology of classic English liberalism in three ways: by its emphasis upon self-interest and individual initiative; by its apparent distrust of the state; and, by the significance it attaches to the participation of the parties. Much of the current discussion of access to justice is concerned with the inequities that flow from the adversarial system along with a growing recognition that participation of parties poses particular and difficult problems. Parties with limited resources and with small or diffuse claims face the greatest difficulties, especially when they are litigating against large organizations, be they trade unions, corporations, or an arm of government

The Community Legal Clinic Quality Assurance Program: An Innovative Experience in Quality Assurance in Legal Aid

The issue of quality in the provision of legal services to low income individuals has become an area of increasing concern and investigation in a number of different jurisdictions around the world. In Ontario, this issue has been addressed, at least in part, through the implementation of a formal quality assurance program providing for regular quality monitoring and control in the province\u27s community legal clinic system. Anecdotal evidence indicates that the program, which has completed in-depth site visits at over one-third of the province\u27s 70 community clinics, has had a beneficial effect on individual clinics and the clinic system as a whole in Ontario. There exists strong support for the quality assurance program among clinics and experience shows that clinics are implementing the program\u27s recommendations as well as taking proactive steps to improve quality prior to formal reviews. Despite this success, the program has been faced with many difficult issues since its inception. These issues include the appropriateness of client file reviews, the relationship of the quality assurance program to funding decisions, and the extent to which lawyers\u27 work should be supervised within a clinic. Legal Aid Ontario, which has recently taken over responsibility of Ontario\u27s legal aid plan from the Law Society of Upper Canada, has been given a specific mandate to implement a quality assurance program for the legal aid system as a whole and will be forced to address these same issues as it implements such a program

Making the Justice System Balance: Beyond the Zuber Report

The civil and criminal justice systems rely on a highly individualized dispute resolution process in which each litigant must both prosecute and present his or her own case with limited intervention by the court system and no direct involvement by the judiciary. Neil Brooks has noted that the adversarial system reflects the political and economic ideology of classic English liberalism in three ways: by its emphasis upon self-interest and individual initiative; by its apparent distrust of the state; and, by the significance it attaches to the participation of the parties. Much of the current discussion of access to justice is concerned with the inequities that flow from the adversarial system along with a growing recognition that participation of parties poses particular and difficult problems. Parties with limited resources and with small or diffuse claims face the greatest difficulties, especially when they are litigating against large organizations, be they trade unions, corporations, or an arm of government