Law Reform for Dummies (3rd Edition)

Legal pluralist law reform engages citizens in dialogue through which they gain richer insight into their normative lives and learn to manage everyday interactions with each other. Noting that first- and second-generation law reform commissions have been critiqued for their narrow vision and goal of modifying individual legal rules, this article shifts the focus to the general public as a key player in the enterprise. This is how law reform responds to public concerns and engages the public’s assumptions about the reform process. The true ambition of law reform is to find opportunities for Canadians to examine their assumptions about what they ask of their law, engage in dialogues about where and why their expectations of law might be unrealistic, and involve them in the hard work of building more just official and unofficial legal systems—wherever and by whatever means it is actually carried out