[Written with Bradley Albrecht]

Since 1998, the Canadian Forum on Civil Justice has developed a number of online resources and databases which are designed to increase understanding about the civil justice system, and ultimately to improve access to civil and family justice. My last article focused on the Inventory of Reforms, which, alongside our Clearinghouse, is designed to provide greater access to information on the civil justice system and civil justice reform initiatives.

In all of our work at the Forum we have found that there is a real need to promote a stronger shared understanding and common vocabulary to describe concepts in the civil justice system. The concepts dealt with in our on-line resources are abstract, complex and often represented by multiple synonymous terms. A perfect example is the concept that we refer to as ‘expedited litigation’, which has at least seven equivalent terms in civil procedure rules in jurisdictions across the country. As well, terms like ‘case management’ are used in subtly different ways in different jurisdictions. 

Civil Justice Thesaurus

To address this, we are working to create a new on-line guide to civil justice terminology, the Civil Justice Thesaurus. We see this as a tool that can potentially serve both the legal community and the public by providing a conceptual map of core concepts in the civil justice system and helping to establish a common vocabulary to share experiences.

A mockup of a Thesaurus record for “expedited litigation” is shown below (click on the image to enlarge it). It includes a definition that explains the subject in detail, while under the “Use for” heading we see the variation in terminology used across the country. Also included are links to related terms (in this case two similar terms needing to be distinguished), broader terms and narrower terms, all of which would allow the user to browse the collection of terminology in a very natural way. We would also incorporate recent reforms in this area from our Inventory and relevant publications from our Clearinghouse. The idea is that each subject page pulls all of this information together to become a dynamic portal into one aspect of the civil justice system. 

We imagine students and professors of civil procedure will find this an invaluable tool, and to the extent that everyone concerned with improving access to justice is learning and applying new information and experiences, the Thesaurus will have very broad application. 

Search Thesauri

The idea for the Thesaurus grew out of a desire to find more meaningful ways for users to search our Inventory and Clearinghouse. To address this, our former Librarian, Michael Lines, began the research into creating a civil justice system thesaurus with funding from the Canadian Association of Law Libraries. This foundational research examined existing legal classification schemes to establish the need for a thesaurus, explored possible applications for such a thesaurus, and ultimately culminated in the creation of a draft thesaurus.

In the context of Information Science, a thesaurus is a way of structuring a collection of subjects to allow an indexer or searcher to find the terms that best match the concept they are looking for. For any given term, the thesaurus will include a scope note (SN) that describes in detail how the subject heading is used. In this example we can see that “legal service centres”, a somewhat nebulous term, has been defined very broadly as “Centres serving the public which may provide a variety of legal services including information, advice, referral, or help finding a lawyer.”

Terms in the thesaurus are organized hierarchically, so for example, we see that a “legal service centre” is described here as a type of “legal service provider”, the broader term (BT). The narrower terms (NT) “clinics” and “legal information centres” are both specific types of “legal service centres”. Related terms (RT) link concepts that aren’t hierarchically related, so here, for example, the service provider, “legal service centres”, is related to the thing provided, “legal services”. And finally, the thesaurus includes synonyms, which serve as alternate entry points. In this case, someone looking up “justice access centres” would be directed to use “legal service centres” instead (‘use for’/UF).

A thesaurus is a tool that can be used both by the cataloguer and the end user, so that terms are applied consistently when indexing and then used accurately when searching. For example, integrating the Thesaurus into our Clearinghouse and Inventory as a public search tool would allow users to search for “unrepresented litigants” or “pro se litigants” and have both of those synonyms redirected to the term documents are indexed under, “self-represented litigants”.

Incorporating scope notes helps clarify terms with context-specific definitions that may not be clear to the user, such as “discovery” or “assessment”. Scope notes also help the user distinguish between similar terms such as “summary trial” and “summary judgment”. Working in conjunction with the scope notes, the rich relations between terms allow the user to browse to the subject that best matches their query. For example, a user might initially look up “cost of justice”, but then determine based on that thesaurus entry that the related term “legal fees” is a better search term for what they are looking for.

Current Work

At this stage in the project, we have a ‘working draft’ thesaurus that includes 333 preferred terms and 72 synonyms. Significant work remains to be done to expand and improve this draft, but for now we have implemented it as a cataloguing tool for our Clearinghouse and Inventory.

The challenges at this stage of the research focus primarily on how to improve and expand the content of the thesaurus. Bilingual development is an ongoing challenge which goes far beyond simple translation. We are also exploring how to best develop a collaboration to capture input from civil justice system stakeholders, legal information experts and the public, to improve and expand the draft thesaurus and refine the design of the public interface.

If you would like any further information, have any advice or would be interested in working with us as we plan the next stages in the development of the thesaurus, we would be delighted to hear from you.

This is my first column for Slaw, and I have been trying to decide where to begin. I’d like to tell you a bit about the story of the Canadian Forum on Civil Justice, but also want to share some of our resources and projects. Since Simon has promised that there will be more columns to follow, I‘ll keep this one focused on just one of our online resources — the Inventory of Reforms.

First though, a bit about the Canadian Forum on Civil Justice. The Forum was created in 1998 to foster knowledge and understanding of civil and family justice systems, and to facilitate positive changes to civil justice for all Canadians. The Forum works collaboratively with all sectors of the justice community, providing expertise in the civil justice systems and in developing reforms aimed at improving access to justice.

The impetus for creating the Forum was the Canadian Bar Association Task Force on the Systems of Civil Justice, which took place in 1995-96 and produced a report with 53 recommendations falling into 7 key areas: 

• Creating a multi-option justice system, which encouraged the incorporation of dispute resolution models into our justice system.
• Reducing delay in our civil and family processes.
• Reducing cost. 
• Improving the public understanding of our civil and family justice systems.
• Preserving the integrity of the Courts.
• Focusing on the needs of legal professionals within this emerging model.
• Increasing the focus on civil justice.

In this final cluster of recommendations, #52 called for the creation of a national organization which would serve as a clearinghouse to share information about the civil justice systems and civil justice reforms, and would undertake in-depth research in order to establish an evidence-base for the ongoing process of reform. The Forum was established at the University of Alberta Faculty of Law and has been fulfilling this mandate through a variety of online resources, publications, research projects, education programs and collaborations.

Under our Constitution in Canada, responsibility for civil procedure falls to each province and territory along with a federal jurisdiction, so there are 14 separate civil justice systems in Canada. There has been a significant amount of reform undertaken in every jurisdiction, and our online Inventory of Reforms grew out of the desire of justice community stakeholders to keep track of and learn from these initiatives.

The Inventory contains descriptions of reform initiatives from across the country, each described according to a standard format that includes information on the purpose, development, implementation and evaluation of the reform. The inventory concept was first discussed by members of our justice community at our 2006 Into the Future conference. The Canadian Judicial Council Administration of Justice Committee provided funding for the initial research, which focused on reforms in five key areas relating to the cost of justice: proportionality, experts, point of entry assistance, discovery and caseflow management. Sixty reforms were identified and included in the Inventory, and a summary of the research is available in a 2008 Report on Selected Reform Initiatives .

The national Action Committee on Access to Justice in Civil and Family Matters has recommended the continued development of the Inventory, and in 2009 the Canadian Bar Law for the Future Fund provided funding for the continued expansion and updating of the collection. This research resulted in the addition of 68 new records and the updating of 45 records, with trends in the reforms identified in the report on the Inventory of Reforms Research. This further expansion was again focused on reforms relating to cost and include reforms aimed at improving the public understanding, innovations in providing advice and representation, changes to the systems and procedures in our courts, ADR initiatives, reducing delay through Court supervision of the progress of cases, procedures designed to reduce cost and the use of technology.

The Inventory provides insight into the large number of reforms that have been undertaken throughout the country, and confirmation that the justice system is undergoing constant review and renewal. This ongoing renewal means that there will always be a need to update and expand the Inventory, however it is already a much-used resource on our website, making up more than half of the recorded page views. I will be interested to receive your comments on the Inventory, including suggestions for future development of this resource. In a future column I will tell you about an online Thesaurus of Civil Justice Terminology that will be integrated into our Inventory and Clearinghouse in the coming months.