Access to Justice Legal Apps Challenge Modules

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Centre for Law, Technology and Society

Access to Justice Legal Apps Challenge Modules

The Access to Justice Legal Apps Challenge Modules, developed with financial support from the Government of Ontario's Early Researcher Awards Program, intend to get participants to think of new ways to use technology to better increase access to justice, and to ultimately design a concept for a legal app to address an access to justice issue.

Developed by Dr. Amy Salyzyn, Ocean Avriel and Conor Leggott, the set of five modules found on this webpage are intended to operate as a “mini-course” for Ontario high-school students. Each module contains background information on the topic to help instructors prepare for the lessons. The background information has sources to support instructors and students delving further into topics of interest. The modules are designed so that they can be used in either an in-person or virtual learning environment.

Important

If you are an Ontario high school teacher who is interested in piloting these materials or would like to provide general feedback on these modules, including suggestions on how they might be improved, please contact Professor Amy Salyzyn ([email protected]).

Ontario Curiculum (PDF, 285 Kb)

Key Learning Outcomes

Understanding the concept of access to justice by identifying legal problems and barriers that prevent people from getting help.
Exploring the benefits and risks of technology to help make justice more accessible for everyone.
Designing an access to justice app in order to solve important justice needs.
Using persuasive communication to pitch a newly invented digital tool to an audience.

Key skill applications

Critical thinking
Research
Legal perspectives and approaches to problem solving
Equity and social justice
Accessibility and design
Persuasive communication
Entrepreneurship
Teamwork

Module 1: What is Access to Justice

Introduces students to the concept of access to justice and explores barriers that prevent people from getting help for their legal problems.

Lesson plan and background information (PDF, 416 Kb)

Supporting PowerPoint

Module 2: Access to Justice & Technology

Students brainstorm ideas for their own apps to address access to justice after learning about the benefits and risks of using technology to address access to justice needs.

Lesson plan and background information (PDF, 280 Kb)

Supporting PowerPoint

Module 3: Access to Justice App Design

Students learn about how to apply a “human-centered” design approach to their own access to justice apps.

Lesson plan and background information (PDF, 316 Kb)

Supporting PowerPoint

Module 4: Legal App & Poster Presentation

Students develop persuasive speaking skills while they prepare posters and presentations outlining their app design.

Lesson plan and background information (PDF, 923 Kb)

Supporting PowerPoint

Module 5: Pitching Access to Justice Apps

Each student group pitches their app ideas to the class with a goal of persuading the class that their app technology will help users address access to justice issues.

Lesson plan and background information (PDF, 283 Kb)

Supporting PowerPoint

Contact and credits

Dr. Amy Salyzyn

Associate Professor, Common Law Section, Faculty of Law
Faculty member, Centre for Law, Technology and Society

Credits

“Access To Justice Legal Apps Challenge Modules” are licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/

Photo by Rob Hampson on Unsplash