Research

About the Project

Level will be working with Indigenous youth to create a resource regarding the Canadian criminal justice system. The resource will be culturally anchored, featuring the input, illustrations and artwork of the Indigenous youth participants as well as Indigenous teachings and guidance from Elders and Knowledge Keepers. Designed to be both informative and preventative, the resources will focus on youth in grades seven and eight and will increase their capacity to navigate the legal issues that impact their lives.

We are seeking law students to conduct research to help us to identify common justice issues facing youth, and to draft related summaries of law, including highlighting important jurisprudence and legal processes, as well as outlining the rights, obligations, and options for youth required to navigate these issues.

About the Project

Unlike education and health care, inequitable access to justice and its devastating impacts are not well understood by the Canadian public. To combat this, Level is thrilled to announce a new research project aimed at identifying and disrupting barriers to justice in Canada. The project will take an interdisciplinary approach and engage 3-5 law, business, and/or arts students to research and identify key barriers to justice in Canada and opportunities to overcome these barriers.

Under the supervision of Level's Executive Director, and using a design thinking approach, students will frame the scope of the project, establish a workplan and work as a team to research and produce the final report, which will be published by Level in June 2018. Students may also have the opportunity to present their findings to a panel of legal disruptors at the Centre for Social Innovation in Toronto, Ontario in May 2018.

Partners:
Department of Justice Canada
Fasken Martineau DeMoulin LLP
The Stephen Lewis Foundation

The African and Canadian Women’s Human Rights Project (ACWHRP) was happily housed at Level (as then CLA-ACE) for the first phase of its work on its criminalization of marital rape and customary law project. The ACWHRP involved a collaborative partnership of African women’s human rights NGO’s and academics from Ghana, Kenya and Malawi working with Canadian human rights experts. ACWHRP held a very successful customary law and marital rape workshop in Kenya in February 2010 and produced research papers looking at the relationship between customary law and women’s rights and the legal treatment of marital rape. These papers can be found here.

ACWHRP now operates independently as “equality effect”. For more information about the equality effect and its projects, please visit their website.

Partners:
KNUST Faculty of Law, Kumasi, Ghana
University of Ottawa Faculty of Law

Level (as then CLA-ACE) entered into a partnership with the KNUST Faculty of Law in Kumasi, Ghana and the Faculty of Law at the University of Ottawa to establish a pilot University Legal Clinic at the KNUST Faculty of Law.

Through the University Legal Clinic, marginalized groups in Kumasi received legal assistance and information that they would not otherwise be able to access or afford. Moreover, KNUST law students received critical real-life training and be inspired to use these new-found skills to further serve their own community. In the long-term, by promoting the rule of law and protecting human rights, this project continues to help reduce poverty and promote economic development in Ghana.

Partners:
Legal Services Board of Nunavut
Borden Ladner Gervais LLP

Lawyers and law students from BLG worked with the LSB to develop radio scripts in the area of poverty law (e.g., family law, wills and estates) that the LSB then used to achieve their goal of increased public legal education for Nunavummiut. Radio is an ideal and preferred means to disseminate information in the large territory, and it is accessible to all audiences regardless of an individual’s literacy level. The LSB has had great success in providing public legal education material with a weekly radio show, supplemented with local community radio appearances by counsel who appear on a regular rotation. 

The LSB is the territorial organization that delivers legal aid in Nunavut. It provides criminal, family, child welfare, as well as civil and poverty legal services to Nunavummiut through three regional clinics.  The LSB has also participated in Level’s Summer Internship Program with students working at the Iqaluit and Rankin Inlet clinics.  Former Iqaluit mayor Madeleine Redfern helped develop this partnership in her role as Chair of the LSB.

Partners:
Kosovo Law Center
Heenan Blaikie LLP (former)

Level (as then CLA-ACE) was very pleased with the success of its pilot pro bono project with the Kosovo Law Center and the former Canadian law firm Heenan Blaikie LLP to produce the Kosovo Supreme Court Reports. This project was designed to increase the transparency of Kosovo’s legal system, improve the written product of the Supreme Court and lower courts, contribute to safeguarding the independence and impartiality of the judiciary, and allow Kosovars to follow and understand important case law. The project received considerable attention and was the subject of an article in the May 2006 edition of The Lawyers Weekly.