The recipient, Jake Effoduh, is an assistant professor at Lincoln Alexander School of Law
The Law Commission of Ontario (LCO) and Osgoode Hall Law School have congratulated Dr. Jake Okechukwu Effoduh on his appointment as the inaugural fellow of the Raj Anand LCO Access to Justice Research Fellowship.
According to the LCO’s news release, Effoduh will use this opportunity to draft an Ontario algorithmic accountability framework for administrative justice.
He will prepare practical guidance for the transparent, fair, accountable, accessible, and rights-respecting utilization of algorithmic, automated, data-driven, and digital decision-support systems potentially impacting access to justice.
Effoduh will focus on the experiences of individuals involved in the province’s Human Rights Tribunal, Landlord and Tenant Board, and Social Benefits Tribunal, including those who will most likely feel the impacts of poorly governed technology.
“We look forward to following Jake's work on algorithmic accountability in Ontario's administrative justice system,” stated a LinkedIn post from Osgoode, from which Effoduh received his PhD this year and his LLM in 2018.
The LCO expressed gratitude to everybody who applied for the fellowship. The commission acknowledged the strength of many of these applications.
“We were encouraged by the breadth of ideas and research addressing important and emerging access to justice issues in Ontario,” the LCO said in its news release.
“This fellowship reflects the strength of Osgoode's partnership with the Law Commission of Ontario | Commission du Droit de l'Ontario and our shared commitment to advancing innovative access-to-justice research,” added Osgoode’s LinkedIn post.
Effoduh’s profile on the LCO’s website and the commission’s news release provided more information regarding his experience and background.
A tenure-track assistant professor at Toronto Metropolitan University’s Lincoln Alexander School of Law, Effoduh focuses his research, teaching, and community engagement on law, human rights, racial justice, access to justice, technology, and artificial intelligence (AI).
He has worked on “Black Futures by Design,” a national project delving into AI regulation through a Black racial justice lens, and on a research and teaching program centred on what he calls “technological access to justice.”
Effoduh has helped with the United Nations’ AI Governance for Humanity Lab and with the York Regional Police Community Advisory Council on the Ethical Use of AI in Policing in Canada.
He has been a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) expert on AI and the rule of law, editor-in-chief of the Transnational Technology Law Review, and the representative of complainants before the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the UN Human Rights Council.
Here are some other recent news stories involving the LCO.
The LCO announced Neha Chugh as its new board chair as of May 22. She replaced Raj Anand, who had held the leadership role since 2020.
In April, the LCO shared its strategic plan for 2026–28, centred on the following priorities: producing independent law reform projects, strengthening engagement and public education, expanding its reach and influence, and establishing an equitable organization.
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