Law Times

law Times • July 8, 2013 Page 5 NEWS Electronic filing, videoconferencing touted Continued from page 1 family court judge. "We're still operating family courts like they did a 100 years ago." For Brownstone, the first Canadian judge with a TV show, the solution starts by asking if everyone who comes to court actually needs to be there. "What I mean by that is people have to attend courts even for very minor things," he says. "The biggest technological advance that can enhance access to justice and make legal services a lot cheaper for people is e-filing: filing a document without having to come to court." Not only would electronic filing make the courts paperless, it would also significantly cut down the fees litigants have to pay lawyers to physically file documents, says Brownstone. Of course, there are security concerns when it comes to sending legal documents via the Internet, but there are ways to overcome that, says Brownstone. Brownstone, who has made several videos answering family law questions, also sees online content as another simple way to advance access to justice. Entrepreneurship in the legal field outside of the courtroom is another part of the solution. Jeff Fung, for example, founded mylawbid.com, a web site that connects members of the public to lawyers at the very beginning of their case. "I think that's the hardest the courts, it has stagnated," part when you start out," he says Goyal. "We're so besays. "When you're lookAccess to hind compared to even ing for a lawyer, it's very other jurisdictions." hard. You have many Justice In New York, Britain, questions or you don't and British Columbia, know what the pricing is." electronic filing is streamlinMylawbid.com "sort of ing processes and simplifying the courts, balances out the negotiation" between a lawyer and a potential client, says Fung. she notes. "It's old technology; it's not even The web site allows people with legal new technology. One of the things I find is needs to describe their case and compare that the technology we need for courts is responses from lawyers who compete for not cutting-edge." Brownstone makes the same point the retainer. "I think that's a very good start as to how about teleconferencing in court. Family courts, he says, see many cases where the people can get better access," Fung notes. But as Monica Goyal, founder of My parties live in different cities. Currently, Legal Briefcase, points out, services such as courts have resorted to "a cumbersome hers can only do so much when the courts and paper-driven" system to deal with such don't embrace technology. My Legal Brief- cases, he adds. "Why in the world they case allows users to ask legal questions don't have Skype or one of these telecononline as well out fill out court forms to ferencing technologies so that there's one generate documents including statements hearing where both parties are participatof claim, wills, and powers of attorney. Yet ing by video is beyond me," he says. The use of teleconferencing would go without electronic filing, people still need to go to court to hand over those docu- beyond support orders in family court, ments, she says. "You can have a service like Brownstone says, noting that a video hearMy Legal Briefcase, but at the end of the ing would come in handy in abduction day, you have to interface with the court," and custody cases as well. Goyal and Brownstone also cite online she says with a laugh. "At the end of the day, My Legal Briefcase can only be a piece of dispute resolution as another way to make the justice system more efficient. The disthe solution." Over the last several decades, the legal cussion over court technology is hardly industry has advanced in many ways in new, says Goyal, who calls it "a good quesOntario "but if you look at technology in tion to ask why we're not moving forward." Cost is one issue, Brownstone suggests, but moving forward will require making court technology a priority. This month, the Ontario Court of Justice will run a pilot project to produce court orders "right there and then," he notes. Including himself, about four judges are participating in a process that will include using software created by the Ministry of the Attorney General to print orders in the courtroom. The procedure would cut the time spent on producing court orders, says Brownstone. "That would be a big, big thing," he says. "That's a big, innovative step that we're about to start." Whatever the solution, the need to address the access to justice problem quickly is urgent, according to Brown in Michael Markicevic. Noting the prospect that the Markicevic family's legal costs could go even higher than his estimate, Brown shuddered at the implications. "If we have reached the point where $800,000 cannot buy you a defence to a $1.2-million fraud claim, then we may as well throw up our collective hands and concede that our public courts have failed and are now only open to the rich," he wrote. LT This is the first in Law Times' summer series on access to justice. The series will consider the issues raised in each of the working group reports prepared by the Action Committee on Access to Justice in Civil and Family Matters. Crown, police 'thumbing their nose' at judge Continued from page 1 Times the Crown didn't refer the matter for further investigation. Nevertheless, Chief Stephen Tanner ordered an internal review. It concluded the officers "were justified in their actions" and "were not untruthful in their testimony," says Halton police Sgt. Dave Cross. The Crown and Halton police are effectively "thumbing their nose" at the judge, says Wendy Oughtred, a Burlington lawyer who represented Brown, the accused, at his trial. "It is not going to get much clearer. They were caught in a lie," says Oughtred. She questions whether the new Crown policy amounts to more than "lip service" if it doesn't believe findings such as those made by Brown merit further review of police conduct. A practice memorandum dated Jan. 9 and sent to all Crown attorneys by assistant deputy attorney general James Cornish outlines the specifics of the new policy. The memo begins by stating that "the vast majority of police officers testify in an honest and straightforward manner." This conclusion stems from a review by Cornish after he "consulted broadly and determined that it is rare for a trial judge to make comments suggesting a police officer has been deliberately dishonest under oath," said Crawley. (The ministry didn't respond to a request by Law Times seeking to clarify the difference between a judicial finding of dishonesty and one a of deliberate lie.) If a judge has concluded an officer was deliberately untruthful, the memo states the trial Crown must forward the comments to the Crown attorney. Within 30 days of receiving material from the trial prosecutor, the Crown attorney must decide whether to refer the matter to the director of Crown operations. At this point, the Crown makes a decision on whether to forward the comments to the police service that employs the officer. Defence lawyer Edward Sapiano, who has frequently been outspoken about police misconduct, questions the good faith behind the new policy. "Why is such a complex, multilevel bureaucratic decision-making apparatus required merely to determine whether a police officer should be criminally investigated after being publicly labelled a deliberately dishonest witness by a trial judge?" asks Sapiano. The new policy is "a bureaucratic quagmire from which a charge of perjury will never emerge," he adds. Toronto defence lawyer Leora Shemesh echoes that view. "I don't think you need a new policy" to take action when a judge finds that a police officer has lied in court, she says. "If I were found to have lied in court, I would be up before the law society in no time," says Shemesh. She also has concerns about the fact that even if the Crown refers a matter to police, it doesn't do so to an outside investigative agency. Shemesh represented a Toronto cook who had impaired driving and other charges stayed this spring as a result of the conduct of several police officers. One of the officers is now facing a charge of assault causing bodily harm following a ruling issued by Justice Ford Clements. The judge also concluded that the testimony of six Toronto officers was "contrary to logic and common sense" and that there was a "contrived effort" by the police witnesses to justify their actions. A spokeswoman for Toronto police says the force's professional standards branch has launched an internal investigation based on Clements' findings in the case. LT Added achievements. Jeffrey Lem, Partner, Miller Thomson LLP The Federation of Asian Canadian Lawyers (FACL) is proud to announce that Jeffrey W. Lem is the recipient of the FACL Lifetime Achievement Award for his longstanding and significant contributions to the legal profession and his outstanding service to the Asian-Canadian community. Congratulations Jeffrey! www.lawtimesnews.com JeffLem_LT_July8_13.indd 1 13-07-03 9:46 AM

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