2024 marked a transformative year for Jurivision, highlighted by an ambitious multimedia project on the Supreme Court of Canada. With an extensive network of professors, collaborators and freelancers across the country, the platform continues to push the boundaries of knowledge mobilization.
With a global reach of nearly 10,000 users, nearly 40,000 visits to the website (an annual increase of 66%!) and tens of thousands of views on YouTube, Jurivision solidified its status as a leader in legal education.
“I’ve always been convinced that lawyers could harness the techniques of documentary film and digital marketing to communicate the law creatively and effectively,” says Jurivision director Étienne Trépanier. “Thanks to the support of Dean Marie-Ève Sylvestre and the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Law, the project continues to refine its interdisciplinary approach to delivering knowledge through original, high-quality productions capable of reaching an ever wider and more diverse audience.”
A Human-Centered Supreme Court Experience
By far the project that most mobilized its team this year, Jurivision is preparing a cutting-edge multimedia learning experience for the 150th anniversary of the Supreme Court of Canada in 2025. This experience will include a freely accessible online course, with documentary capsules, and a virtual experience akin to a video game, developed in partnership with Affordance Studio.
From May to September, our team spent twenty days on the road with justices, university researchers and litigants from across the country who have fought legal battles all the way to the Supreme Court.
“Beyond its institutional framework, the Supreme Court is also the scene of extraordinary human stories,” says Nicolas Monet, the project’s content producer, researcher and scriptwriter. “It was important for us to show that, on the contrary, the Court has a direct impact on the lives of Canadians. To show why it’s important to understand what happens at the Supreme Court.”
A further illustration of the status that Jurivision has acquired in the Canadian legal community, the platform also collaborated with the Superior Court of Quebec to produce a video celebrating its 175th anniversary. In addition to being available on Jurivision, the video is screened during conferences in schools.
Legal Status of Human Ashes, Statelessness and Indigenous Legal Orders
Jurivision published 24 visual posts in 2024, covering topics ranging from the World Trade Organization to the sociology of fashion, as well as stateless people and an interview with the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.
In keeping with its mission to mentor future jurists, Jurivision also oversaw the production of seven student projects this year, tackling a variety of issues such as access to justice in the Gaspésie region, the portrayal of justice on television and the practice of international criminal law.
In addition, the Wapanakew project, which showcases Indigenous legal systems using audiovisual media, continued to grow, with filming taking place in several Indigenous communities, including the Mohawk community of Kahnawá:ke and the Atikamekw community of Opitciwan. These projects, which will be broadcast in 2025, are part of an ongoing effort to highlight Indigenous knowledge and promote its inclusion in the Canadian legal landscape.
This fall, Jurivision also launched a new visioformation in French exploring the legal and social issues surrounding cremation in Quebec: “Éthique de la décomposition”. The course, which has already attracted more than 50 learners, takes an interdisciplinary approach, drawing on thanatology, anthropology, history and sociology.
Finally, for the first time since its founding in 2020, Jurivision collaborated with academic organizations outside the legal world. Our team produced a series of vignettes on ethical considerations in research partnerships with Big Tech with the Canadian Robotics and Artificial Intelligence Ethical Design Lab, and a series of vignettes for the XXIInd Congress of the Association internationale des sociologues de langue française.
A Stepping Stone to 2025
With an expanded team and renewed ambitions, Jurivision is poised for continued growth in 2025, a year that will be marked by the launch of major projects.
In addition to the Supreme Court initiative and the latest Wapanakew projects, the team is currently working on a visioformation project on the over-judicialization of people with mental health issues.
Other major projects are also in development, in Canada and elsewhere in the Americas. Stay tuned!
Have a compelling idea for a visual publication in 2025? Share your vision with us by clicking here and contribute to Jurivision’s mission to redefine legal education.
