Facing a Broken System

Jumping Off the Ivory Tower with Prof JulieMac

This week’s episode is taken from a keynote speech recently delivered by Julie and her husband and professor of conflict resolution, Bernie Mayer, to the joint annual conference of the Ontario Association of Family Mediators and the Ontario Collaborative Law Federation. Julie and Bernie addressed an audience of mediators and legal professionals focused on Access to Justice – a sample of insiders – and presented them with two challenges: to consider Access to Justice as a threshold issue, and to examine how we handle conflict in our wider culture. They discussed the ways paternalism and a system of complex rules are holding the legal profession back, and how system insiders need to face and address systemic problems. The episode outro is provided by family lawyer Chris Arnold, whose Ottawa practice focuses on family mediation and collaborative family law; Chris was present for Julie and Bernie’s speech, and he reflects on the reception it got at the conference. In other news: last week, leaders of 50 justice organizations in British Columbia joined Attorney General David Eby and Chief Justice of British Columbia Robert Bauman to mark the signing of the Access to Justice Triple Aim, which will guide initiatives and reforms for making family and civil justice more accessible to British Columbians; a recent podcast from the Lawyerist podcast is all about access to justice, and includes an in-depth conversation with Professor Rebecca Sandefur; and finally, NSRLP announced last week that we have two new members joining our Advisory Board, Justice David Price, and Ms. Jana Saracevic – welcome both! For related links and more on this episode, visit our website: https://representingyourselfcanada.com/facing-a-broken-system/ Jumping Off the Ivory Tower is produced and hosted by Julie Macfarlane and Dayna Cornwall; production and editing by Brauntë Petric; Other News produced and hosted by Ali Tejani; promotion by Moya McAlister and Ali Tejani.