Canadian Lawyer

w w w . C A N A D I A N L a w y e r m a g . c o m F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 6 25 aren't harmful, neglectful, discriminatory, and violent, if it doesn't reflect what we need from one another to be well and to succeed, and if we don't construct justice responses that are up to the task of doing that work, then we can't do justice." Because we ignore social relationships, says Llewellyn, we have what now passes for criminal justice in Canada's biggest cities — a relentless court mill where police, parole officers, lawyers, and judges churn through a parade of accused offenders in the hopes of stemming the tide of violence and dis- order just enough to keep people margin- ally safe, but not addressing the underlying issues and, ultimately, not serving the needs of either victims or those convicted. Llewellyn has been immersed in ques- tions of justice, and social justice, as long as she can remember. She grew up in the Toronto area as the daughter of a United Church minister who led the Canadian boycott against food manufacturer Nestle in the 1970s and '80s, for the powdered- milk baby supplement it sold in develop- ing nations. Llewellyn remembers, as a precocious child, taking out Nestle prod- ucts from the carts of strangers in grocery stores, explaining that the company was killing babies. "I've grown out of doing those types of things," she says. "I hope I'm slightly more subtle now." Her father also worked with aboriginal protesters behind the barricades during the 1990 Oka crisis and her mother was active in the anti-apartheid movement. So it was natural for Llewellyn, during the summer of 1997 after her first year of law school at the University of Toronto, to find work in South Africa as a researcher for the country's post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission. That experi- ence awakened her to the potential of restorative justice. After earning her law degree, she did graduate work at Harvard Law School, wrote a research paper for the Law Com- mission of Canada on restorative justice, and won a full-time teaching position at Dalhousie in 2002. Nova Scotia was a good fit for one of Canada's emerging experts in restorative justice. In 1997, the province launched a pilot project to introduce a restorative justice model to young offenders. Today, such programs are available throughout the province's youth justice system and are also being pioneered in various forms in adult court, in the province's public schools, and by the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission. Llewellyn, and her restorative justice law students, helped shape and lead those efforts. She has also advised the Assembly of First Nations and Canada's residential schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission, as well as the United Nations and the Jamaican govern- ment, on that country's justice system. In 2014, her expertise even came in handy on campus, amid the scandal involving misogynist Facebook posts by male dentistry students against female colleagues. The university asked Llewellyn to help design a restorative justice process that would hold the offending students accountable while also allowing them the chance to graduate rather than face expul- sion under the university's formal, more legalistic complaint system. Whether it's youth crime, righting the wrongs of the residential school system, or resolving a defamatory social media scandal, Llewellyn says restorative justice offers solutions that are more holistic, more lasting, and more helpful in the long run to both victims and offenders. While no Canadian jurisdiction has yet made restorative justice widely available to adult offenders, she says there's no reason not to — even for serious crimes. That doesn't mean murderers and rapists would all be asked to sit in a circle and try to hug and make up with their victims. Restor- ative justice takes many forms — includ- ing parallel custodial sentences for serious crimes. The point is not to focus solely on retribution but also on relationships and future co-existence — allowing offenders, victims, and facilitators to willingly work towards not forgiveness but understanding and truth telling. In doing so, says Llewellyn, victims tend to feel their stories have been prop- erly heard and offenders have a chance to answer directly for the harms they've caused, emerging with a greater sense of responsibility for their actions in the future. Does that leave lawyers, so accustomed to resolving conflict via the adversarial arts, shut out of the system? Not at all, says Llewellyn. Law is about the "fair and just ordering of society," so law- yers bring valuable knowledge to restorative justice programs. Practitioners and their cli- ents simply need to think differently about what "winning" means in any conflict. Does it mean, for prosecutors, being satisfied only with a tough sentence, or for defence coun- sel, the opposite? What if "winning" meant achieving the best outcome for the well- being and success of clients, victims, and the community, not just in the aftermath of a crime but deeper into the future? Law- yers are uniquely placed to do that because they're trusted by their clients, because they have really good analysis of the range of cir- cumstances and contexts affecting the situ- ation. I think working differently, helping people think more complexly about what constitutes a 'win,' opens up huge oppor- tunities for lawyers to do the work they do best, in the service of justice." It's time to rank… THE TOP 10 LITIGATION AND CORPORATE LAW BOUTIQUES Complete the survey online at canadianlawyermag.com/surveys and make your picks. SURVEY IS OPEN UNTIL MARCH 1 st

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