OBA Foundation Chief Justice of Ontario Fellowships

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS

The OBA Foundation is now accepting applications for each of these two Fellowships for the 2023-2024 year. The deadline for applications is Friday, July 14, 2023. 

  • $15,000 will be paid to the recipient of the OBA Foundation Chief Justice of Ontario Fellowship in Legal Ethics and Professionalism Research. This Fellowship is open to full-time faculty teaching at a Canadian university or college.
  • $5,000 will be paid to the recipient of the OBA Foundation Chief Justice of Ontario Fellowship in Legal Ethics and Professionalism Studies. This Fellowship is open to CBA members who are not full-time faculty teaching at a Canadian university or college.

The details of the Fellowships, including any limiting conditions, are available at:
oba.org/OBAFoundation/Fellowships/Terms-of-Reference


The OBA Foundation administers and funds The OBA Foundation Chief Justice of Ontario Fellowships in Legal Ethics and Professionalism (the “Fellowships”).

2023-2024 WINNERS

The Chief Justice of Ontario Fellowship in Research (Fellowship in Research) is awarded to Gideon Christian PhD, Assistant Professor (AI and Law), Faculty of Law University of Calgary.

Ethical Framework for the Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the Legal Profession

Advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) have revolutionized numerous sectors, including the legal profession. AI is now increasingly being used in various aspects of legal practice, such as legal research, eDiscovery document review, and case law analysis. Among the notable transformations in AI usage, the emergence of generative AI, popularized by ChatGPT, stands out.

The research titled “Ethical Framework for the Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the Legal Profession” aims to develop ethical rules to regulate the use of Generative AI in the legal profession. Regulating the use of generative AI in the legal profession is one of the biggest professionalism issues faced by the profession today.

The need for this regulation has been evident in recent cases where the use of the technology has led to the filing of bogus legal materials before the court, thus undermining the judicial and public trust in the use of generative AI technologies in the profession. This problem will grow as more sophisticated versions of generative AI develop.

Ethical guidelines for using the technology in the legal profession will enhance technological advancement in the profession and build judicial and public trust in the use of the technology before the courts.

The research will seek to, among others, identify the ethical challenges associated with the use of generative AI in the legal profession, analyze the existing legal and ethical frameworks relevant to AI and their applicability to generative AI in the legal practice, identify relevant regulatory framework and guidelines in other jurisdictions such as the United States and Europe, and develop a comprehensive ethical framework specifically tailored to address the unique challenges and concerns of using generative AI in the legal profession.

The OBA Foundation Chief Justice of Ontario Fellowship in Legal Ethics and Professionalism Studies (Fellowship in studies) is awarded to Neha Chugh.

In this research, I hope to explore access to justice gaps in rural Ontario.  I want to ask the following questions:  What access to justice gaps exist in rural Ontario? Are we understanding these gaps in comparison to their urban counterparts or as distinct issues? What is our professional and ethical obligation to Ontarians to ensure that rural communities are achieving their access to justice needs? What are potential solutions to the access to justice crisis are being contemplated, especially considering innovations in technology in our justice system?

Over the course of the year, I hope to produce the following deliverables: A research report that provides insights from rural Ontario: I propose to meet with Law Associations executives from rural communities across Ontario, to conduct qualitative interviews that will cover the issues that stakeholders have identified. An academic article in a peer reviewed journal that reports the outcomes of these qualitative interviews, with a socio-legal lens. This research will be presented at academic conferences, but mostly presented back to the Ontario Bar Association, the Federation of Law Associations, and the Law Society of Ontario.