I am a lawyer and legal researcher specializing in the intersection of law, technology, and AI, with a focus on legal process engineering, AI governance, and access to justice. I am currently a PhD candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School, researching the ethical integration of AI within the Canadian justice system. Having just completed my LLM on legal process design methodology, my doctoral research will build on cutting edge methods for responsibly integrating technology in the justice system. I also serve as a Research Fellow at the Artificial Intelligence Risk and Regulation Lab. I was first introduced to the subject of AI in the administration of justice while clerking at Canada's Federal Court, where I played a significant role in the first rules and regulations governing the use of AI by Canadian judges.
Research
My doctoral research focuses on the integration of emerging technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), into ourjustice system. The core question guiding my work is how these technologies can be effectively adopted to enhance access to justice while preserving constitutional principles like procedural fairness and judicial independence. This research is a natural extension of my current master's thesis, which also explores the impact of technology on legal processes and access to justice. I've had the opportunity to build on this interest through my Research Fellowship at the Artificial Intelligence Risk and Regulation Lab (AIRRL) and my work with the Federal Court of Canada's AI Working Group, where I contributed to the development of the court's Interim Principles and Guidelines on the Court's Use of Artificial Intelligence.
The existing academic literature on AI in the legal field tends to focus on its applications for lawyers, such as research and document review. While important, this body of work often provides limited insight into how AI affects judges, courts, and the broader justice system. Studies that do touch on AI's potential in judicial decision-making often remain theoretical or speculative, lacking concrete evidence on its real-world impact. The recent emergence of generative AI tools, like ChatGPT, has further highlighted the urgent need for research and ethical guidelines concerning their use in judicial contexts. My research aims to fill this scholarly gap by comprehensively investigating the integration of AI into the Canadian judiciary, focusing on its impact on judges, courts, and the administration of justice.
I propose a unified approach that understands access to justice by simultaneously examining the technologies used, the processes they modify, and their impact on all system actors. My research is built on the hypothesis that meaningful access to justice can only be understood by considering the interplay between technology, legal process design, and the actors within the justice system. For instance, technological improvements alone may not enhance access to justice if the underlying legal processes aren't redesigned to be more user-centric. My study will apply a justice process engineering methodology to map how technologies interact with both traditional and innovative dispute resolution models.
My research methodology will be a mixed-methods approach, drawing on three primary data sources. First, I will conduct semi-structured qualitative interviews with a wide range of stakeholders, including judges, legal administrators, legal service providers, and justice system users, to gather their perspectives on how new technologies are reshaping justice processes. Second, I will perform quantitative data analysis by collecting and analyzing procedural data from courts across Canada, such as case discontinuance rates and litigant success rates, to assess how technology impacts system efficiency and resource utilization. Finally, I will conduct in-depth secondary research, reviewing existing scholarly works, empirical studies from other jurisdictions, and Canadian case law to understand precedents related to procedural fairness and access to justice.
The results of this research will have significant implications for policymakers, legal professionals, and justice system designers. By providing an evidence-based framework, my study can help courts and tribunals adopt technology in a way that respects constitutional principles while still improving efficiency and access to justice. It will also serve as a blueprint for policymakers seeking to reform access to justice and could inform government initiatives and public policy. Ultimately, this work aims to provide stakeholders with clear guidelines on using technology, mitigating risks of bias, and ensuring that technological innovation coexists with judicial independence and other constitutional principles.
This will contribute to the development of a framework for the responsible and ethical integration of AI into the Canadian judiciary, ensuring it enhances justice rather than undermines it.