In England, Australia, and Canada, the move towards online courts has been the subject of a lot of reports, discussion, submission, blogs and Twitter traffic (there is so much I can’t link it all but a great entry point is the excellent Law, Technology and Access to Justice blog). In New Zealand, things have been …

Continue reading Quiet introduction of online courts in NZ?

This article was originally published as an opinion piece on Radio New Zealand News as Rules v justice: Trial outcome shows law change needed (23 January 2019). Reading the judgment in Taylor v Roper is likely to leave a lingering sense of injustice for all but the strictest believers that the rules are the rules. Ms Taylor had …

Continue reading Rules v Justice – Costs in Taylor v Roper

In New Zealand, costs are awarded on a scale to the party who succeeds in litigation but only if that party is represented. McGuire v the Secretary of Justice [2018] NZSC 50 dashed hopes for an end this rule (what is called the “primary rule” in the case), which would have brought New Zealand to the …

Continue reading Dashed hopes: McGuire v the Secretary of Justice

The very productive and dynamic Legal Design Lab at Stanford Law have released a new project recently called “Learned Hands”. It is described as: … a game in which you spot possible legal issues in real people’s stories about their problems. You read the stories, and then say whether you see a certain legal issue …

Continue reading Playing games – research in online dispute resolution

The Chief Justice recently gave an interesting Sir John Graham Lecture at the Maxim Institute. The whole address is available here and it was followed by a Q&A session available here – she is an excellent speaker and she traversed a wide range of material such as access to justice, open courts, the fragility of …

Continue reading Chief Justice on Women Lawyers – leave your firm and change the world?

The Sunday Star Times, a nationally distributed paper, ran a story this weekend on access to civil legal aid. This was quite surprising (and pleasing), as it tends not be a headline grabbing topic. It was likely picked up from the article in this month’s LawTalk written by lawyer Steven Zindell, which uses statistics he …

Continue reading Where have all the lawyers gone? The shortage of civil legal aid providers

The Legal Issues Centre (the Research Centre that I direct) has just released a series of animated videos explaining New Zealand’s civil legal process. We’ve set up a YouTube channel and have released an initial series of nine videos. The idea for this project came out of my thesis work on litigants in person. I had …

Continue reading Explaining legal process – animated video series

I was back for LawFest 2018 having attended for the first-time last year. Sir Ray Avery gave an excellent keynote, pointing out three aspects of New Zealand culture that makes us a country where innovation can occur with ease: we are not fond of rules, happy to shake up the status quo, and we dare …

Continue reading LawFest 2018 – a review and some reflections on communicating with clients

I’ve put together a research project that looks to a future where New Zealand is likely to follow the online court trend, a trend that is already taking off in British Columbia and England and Wales. The study is co-funded by the University of Otago Legal Issues Centre and a generous grant from the New …

Continue reading Explaining a dispute in an online court – a new project

Our Chief Justice recently gave an insightful and searing speech (as is her custom) on the state of our criminal justice system called “Managing Criminal Justice”. I commend reading the speech in full, there is a lot there. There is also an interesting interview with the President of the Criminal Bar Association about the speech …

Continue reading The clash between efficiency and justice: it isn’t just a criminal law problem