Justice

Building trust in society and solving important problems

The time for change is now

Citizen demands are changing. Lagging technologies and paper-based processes are holding the Canadian justice system back from meeting the quickly evolving needs of the citizens it serves. With COVID-19 solidifying an increased desire for digitization, self-service tools and unified digitally enabled user experiences, it's time for justice to move forward in an affordable, efficient and accelerated way.

It’s time to bring the best ideas to life, faster. There’s an opportunity for ministries across Canada to learn from previous pitfalls and address the needs of citizens, judicial officers and court staff by designing a future state powered by digital transformation and enabled by robust change management and operational and regulatory changes.

"Access to justice is a social imperative, and COVID-19 has shown us that it’s increasingly important for our changing society to be able to access justice digitally. I'm proud of the work the justice sector is embarking on to improve access to justice across Canada. This is a historic time in the journey to an accessible, sustainable and modern justice system for citizens across Canada and globally.”

– Domenic Belmonte, Partner, National Defence, Public Safety and Justice Sector Leader, PwC Canada

Policy to execution. Turn ideas into outcomes. Faster.

We bring a unique lens to digital transformation, and our work examines the entire life cycle of justice—from policy to administration. By taking this holistic, collaborative approach and viewing it from the perspective of key stakeholders, including judicial officers, citizens and court administration, we provide solutions that create lasting and transformative change.

We have a significant breadth of experience in defining a digital strategy and roadmap for our justice partners accompanied with a case for change. We’ve supported our clients throughout their transformations through our implementation, transformation office and governance services.

Justice forward. Building a future-proof justice strategy.

We work with our clients to drive meaningful, impactful and sustainable change, and to break down existing access-to-justice barriers. Our tested tools and frameworks enable the justice system to accelerate its transformation outcomes and help to avoid common pitfalls.

Executive alignment and governance
- We work collaboratively to help align business plans, strategies and legislative change to reflect strategic priorities.

Digital transformation strategy
- We establish the business context, define a vision, offer guiding principles and explore the future state, and this anchors our transformation strategy. Using these inputs, the digital transformation strategy is developed to address key focus areas, including:
  - Organizational maturity
  - Transformation readiness
  - Business drivers for change
  - Enabling technology
  - Impacted stakeholders
- Change management and benefits
Roadmap and implementation planning
- In support of the digital transformation strategy, we create an actionable transformation roadmap that outlines specific initiatives to modernize the justice organization. We then define a corresponding implementation plan to formalize an approach, methodology, deployment options, resource requirements and deliverables for initiatives identified in the roadmap.

Operating model and governance model design
- We develop a target operating model that addresses the objectives and drivers for change and incorporates both the business and technology functions. We define an organizational model, governance structure and key role job descriptions for the future-state organization.

An accessible justice system
- We develop strategies, policy and solutions to provide citizens with the help and support they need to address their problems and get timely resolutions.

Online and alternate dispute resolution
- We design processes and solutions for delivering justice services online and options for alternate dispute resolution, including dispute avoidance or early resolution. We use data to constantly evaluate and improve the quality of services.

Behavioural insights
- We use theory from cognitive science, neuroscience, psychology and social influence to understand the root causes of citizen behaviour when engaging with the justice system, and we build a tailored set of recommendations that tackle barriers and improve both experience and outcomes.

Building trust in the justice system
- We build trust and transparency with citizens and increased equality and social stability through equitable access to justice, increased avenues for legal resolution at all stages of the dispute process, better public legal education and information, and reduced complexity for those engaging with the justice system. This ultimately drives increased confidence in the justice system, including affordability and effectiveness.

Emerging technology opportunities and innovation strategy
- We identify innovation opportunities that align with the digital transformation strategy. We assess how emerging technologies can be leveraged to drive additional value and how they can be incorporated into the justice system.

Functional and technical assessments
- We conduct functional and technical assessments to understand the environment and stakeholder challenges, identify gaps and implications to current-state operations and recommend prioritized initiatives to close those gaps. These can help select the right technology or identify how existing technology or processes can be optimized.

Expert system and case management technology implementation
- Using our proven digital justice platforms and accelerators, or through partnering with other industry-leading solutions, our implementation teams create industry-leading solutions that support users through the entire journey on a single platform.

Transition to operations
- As part of the transition to production, we define a support operating model to ensure a smooth transition from the transformation initiative to operations. This includes the governance structure, processes to handle future changes and enhancements, and maintenance service-level agreements to manage and monitor system performance.

Application maintenance and support
- Our application maintenance and support model helps organizations manage support and continuous improvement for their solutions.

Workforce upskilling and digital enablement
- We work with stakeholders across the justice sector to co-create strategies to address the digital needs of all stakeholders and justice system actors, including staff.

Change management
- We support digital transformation programs through the development of a detailed and continuous change management strategy and change roadmaps that engage justice body employees and facilitate their transformation journey.

Knowledge transfer and training
- We build training approaches, knowledge transfer requirements, system/data readiness and key training artifacts for the different types of staff who work across the justice sector.

Digital transformation in Canada’s administrative justice system

“With the Civil Resolution Tribunal’s (CRT’s) technology, British Columbians now have 24/7 free online access to strata (condo) and small claims dispute resolution services, including self-help tools, triage services and legal information and guidance. The CRT process provides flexibility and collaboration to resolve disputes as early and inexpensively as possible.”

—Shannon Salter, Chair, BC Civil Resolution Tribunal

Learn more

Agnostic. Open-minded. Adaptable.

We work with clients across the public sector with diverse access-to-justice challenges. We bring our tested methodologies and lessons learned to help organizations overcome challenges and provide increased value for the citizens they serve and for their staff.

Challenge

Digitization is here to stay. As more and more parts of the sector become digital (tribunals, courts, corrections, bail), there’s a need for supporting processes to help with the technological changes in the justice system.

How we can help

We bring tested methodologies, deep insights and lessons learned. Our proven tools and frameworks enable the justice system to accelerate its transformation outcomes and also help to avoid common pitfalls. Our experience allows us to design strategies to enhance a citizen’s journey throughout the case life cycle right from initiation of case until closure.

Challenge

Due to the siloed nature of existing solutions, justice staff are regularly overburdened with administrative tasks that could have been avoided with a holistic solution. Processes and tools also vary greatly by regions and organizations, leading to lack of shared resources and additional training needs.

How we can help

We work collaboratively with citizens and justice sector stakeholders to understand current issues and to co-create a long-term vision, digital strategy and digital transformation roadmap. By applying a long-term lens to current challenges, we bring industry-leading practices to help standardize processes across regions and enhance coordination, collaboration and interoperability across the justice sector through the use of digital tools and technologies.

Challenge

The current judicial system has an inherent fear of failure due to its past experiences with digital transformation. COVID-19 led to the rapid digitization of many justice services, but many of these are ad hoc and have created their own issues around integration, operations and maintenance. There’s much work to be done to build on the momentum driven by the pandemic to implement sustainable and future-proof solutions.

How we can help

There’s an opportunity for ministries across Canada to learn from previous pitfalls and address the needs of their citizens, judicial officers and court staff by designing a future state that hinges on digital transformation and is enabled by robust change management and operational and regulatory changes. We offer a wide breadth of skilled resources capable of supporting unique needs that may arise during the digital transformation.

Challenge

Many of the justice sector’s technologies are siloed in nature, leading to duplication of effort and manual entry of data into multiple systems. Communication and information sharing with external stakeholders and justice partners is often either highly labour-intensive or paper based due to variations and limitations in technology and limited integrations. Tracking and managing a case across its life cycle is challenging, especially in situations where there are multiple judicial officers presiding over the same case.

How we can help

We apply a unique lens to digital transformation by viewing it from the perspective of key stakeholders, including judicial officers, citizens and court administration, while applying the principles of interoperability and agility. Our work focuses on the entire life cycle of justice, right from policy to justice administration.