Miller, an associate with the Toronto office of Shibley Righton LLP, is a firm believer that technology can help improve judicial efficiency. He tells the online legal publication that Ontario has been gradually rolling out an online civil filing program.

“You can do too much too quickly, and it can easily go awry, but I think the idea is right in providing and making use of technology such as courtrooms and access to justice that is more efficient and less costly,” he tells The Lawyer’s Daily.

“I appreciate for the government and justice system there are some upfront costs in establishing the infrastructure for that sort of thing, but you have to start somewhere, and if you can do things like attendances from jails so people don’t have to drive 10 hours to appear in court, there are savings to be had by that.”

The article says the B.C. government is looking at a variety of ways that technology can help streamline the court system and improve access to justice, including the use of artificial intelligence (AI).

“There are technologies and ways of approaching people’s interaction with the justice system that pose no threat to judicial independence and the integrity of the process but dramatically increase people’s positive experience with the system,” Provincial Attorney General David Eby tells the publication.

“And I think that for most people they have a hard time understanding why they must sit through a full morning of another person’s hearings when they have their appearance in front of a judge, or they don’t understand why they can’t book something online. So, it’s really meant to bridge the gap between people’s expectations on scheduling and service and what they actually experience when they go to court.”