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Enhancing the Legal Profession’s Capacity for Innovation: The Promise of Reflective Practice and Action Research for Increasing Access to Justice

Recent national reports have documented growing justice gaps in Canada and have identified a compelling need for innovation in the justice sector to better meet the needs of the public. Nurturing a greater capacity for individual, collective, and critical reflection will ensure the legal profession is much better equipped to respond creatively and strategically to a lack of equal access to justice.

This article has explored how embracing reflective practice and action research as potent enablers of change and innovation could transform professional culture and justice-related services. Encouraging these new professional capacities will benefit all forms of legal professional practice – whether law teaching, legal research and scholarship, conventional practice of law, court administration, legal aid service delivery, mediation and dispute resolution, and other justice sector roles. To increase leadership and action on equal justice, harnessing these capacities will help shift “professional consciousness,” invigorate professional discourse, create actionable knowledge, and build leadership to help ensure the continued relevance of the profession.

 

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Uploaded on: Nov 14, 2017
Last Updated: Nov 16, 2017
Year Published: 2017
Author: Michele Leering


Resource Tags

Resource Type: Practitioner Resources Issues: Criminal Justice, Generalist Legal Services, Governance, Accountability & Transparency, Legal Aid & Public Interest Law Tool Type: Journal Articles & Books, Training Resources & Popular Education Method: Improving Governance, Accountability and Transparency, Research Languages: English Regions: Canada