Evaluation of Litigation Services

1. Introduction

1.1 Purpose of the Evaluation

This report presents the results of the Evaluation of Litigation Services. The evaluation was conducted in accordance with the Treasury Board’s (TB) Policy on Results (2016), which requires departments to measure and evaluate performance and use the resulting information to manage and improve programs, policies and services. The evaluation was undertaken by the Evaluation Branch of the Department of Justice Canada between September 2018 and July 2019, as per the Department-approved 2019-2020 to 2023-2024 Departmental Evaluation Plan.

1.2 Evaluation Scope

The primary focus of the evaluation was the 2016 reorganization of litigation services, which included creation of the National Litigation Sector (NLS). The evaluation considered early progress toward meeting the objectives of this reorganization as well as the success of resolving litigation files in the context of a new organizational structure. The evaluation also considered how the reorganization of the litigation business line has affected other areas of Justice Canada that work with litigation services, including the Portfolios and Legal Services Units (LSUs).

Given the focus on litigation services, the evaluation included only those areas of the NLS that are directly involved in the management and provision of litigation services.Footnote 1 Areas of the NLS that were included in the evaluation are the office of the Assistant Deputy Attorney General (ADAGO NLS), the office of the Deputy Assistant Deputy Attorney General, the Civil Litigation Section (CLS), the six regional offices’ litigation work (Atlantic or ARO, Québec or QRO, Ontario or ORO, Prairies or PRO, British Columbia or BCRO, and Northern or NRO), the National eDiscovery and Litigation Support Services (NeDLSS), and the Business Integration and Strategies Branch.

The evaluation scope also included, to a more limited extent, litigation services provided by other areas of Justice Canada that are not part of the NLS (which will be referred to in this report as “other litigation units”):

  • the Tax Law Services (TLS) unit in the National Capital Region (NCR), which is part of the Tax Law Services Portfolio (TLSP);
  • the National Security Litigation and Advisory Group (NSLAG) LSU, which is part of the Public Safety, Defence and Immigration Portfolio (PSDIP);
  • Treasury Board Secretariat (TBS) LSU, which is part of the Central Agencies Portfolio(CAP); and
  • the Competition Bureau Legal Services (CBLS), the Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC)/Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC) LSUFootnote 2, and the Transport Canada (TC) LSU, which are part of the Business and Regulatory Law Portfolio (BRLP) .Footnote 3

The evaluation considered the involvement of these other units with the NCR Litigation Committee and their processes for managing litigation.

The evaluation covered litigation services for the fiscal years (FY) 2014-2015 to 2018-2019. The Evaluation Branch directed the evaluation, with the support of an Evaluation Working Group composed of representatives from the NLS, the Public Law and Legislative Services Sector, and the Portfolios.

Date modified: