Court Services of the Future: Online Mediation

In British Columbia, the Legal Services Society has launched a free, online service called “The Family Resolution Centre”. It is part of My Law BC (delivered by legal aid provider Legal Services Society).

The Family Resolution Centre program of My Law BC helps separated couples create parenting plans online. The parenting plans deal with parenting time, vacations, and other childcare needs. Alternatively, couples can request up to five hours of free assistance from a mediator. It is the first service of its kind in Canada. It can be accessed from mylawbc.com under “Mediation Tool”.

Tools like the Family Resolution Centre are a great way to help address the issue of access to justice. Many problems we typically think of as legal problems are really social problems. In the article titled “Access to What?”, Rebecca Sandefur points out that when solving the access to justice problem we need to redefine “access to justice”. Access to justice does not mean unmet legal needs. “Judges and lawyers work at the top of an enormous iceberg of civil justice activity… the access to justice crisis is a crisis of exclusion and inequality, for which legal services will sometimes provide a solution.” Rather addressing access to justice requires us to think of problems more broadly. For instance, thinking of them as issues in relationships, work, or neighbours.

I hope that similar jurisdictions can implement a similar program to the Family Resolution Centre. The program seems to helps people solve their problems simply and in a manner that the public respects.

(Views are my own and do not reflect the views of any organization.)