About Hersh Perlis
Hersh Perlis is the co-founder and Director of the Legal Innovation Zone (LIZ) at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU, formerly named Ryerson University).
Since co-founding the LIZ, Hersh has helped grow it into a leader in the legal innovation space and has worked with law firms, corporations and governments, nationally and internationally, to help identify and better prepare them to take advantage of the opportunities technology and other innovations present in today’s ever changing world. He has spoken extensively on the impacts technology will have on the future of legal services and on the skills necessary to take advantage of the new emerging markets being opened by tech and innovation. Hersh is considered a valued mentor and advisor to dozens of legal tech startups and continues to connect with companies from around the world.
Hersh has previously served as Chief of Staff of Deloitte’s Artificial Intelligence practice and spent 5 years at Queens Park as a Senior Advisor to several ministers and before that spent a decade fundraising in the not-for-profit world.
About Matt Canzer
Matt is the founder of Butterfly Legal, a platform that makes it easy for people with common legal issues to get affordable legal advice online.
Matt completed articles in 2009 and practiced with the Department of Justice Canada before relocating to Kelowna in 2014 where he joined a mid-size law firm, practicing personal injury law and serving as local agent for the Public Prosecution Service of Canada. Between public service and private practice, Matt regularly encountered people struggling to properly engage with our legal system without full-service legal representation, and he became interested in the opportunity to serve the growing segment of the legal consumer market that was not being met by traditional legal service providers.
In May 2020 Matt opened his solo law practice, Matt Canzer Law, to better serve and understand these clients’ needs. He practices sexual tort litigation, mental health law, and offers litigation coaching to self-represented litigants. Matt developed Butterfly Legal to blend self-help resources, automated technology-assisted processes, and on-demand virtual consultations to offer cost-effective unbundled legal services. Butterfly Legal is in the final stages of development and is expected to launch in the coming months.
Matt is also a Supervising Lawyer with the Everyone Legal Clinic, an innovative articling program and public interest law incubator operated by Access Pro Bono. He is a member of the Law Society of British Columbia, the Canadian Bar Association, the Trial Lawyers Association of British Columbia and the Greater Vancouver Interactive Arts Society.
About Marcus Sixta
Marcus is the founder of Crossroads Law as well as Coach My Case, an alternative legal service that provides legal coaching and legal navigation for people representing themselves in court. He established Coach My Case to help address the access to justice crisis in Canada. Through Coach My Case self-represented individuals can retain a paralegal or lawyer, depending on their needs and budget, for remote legal assistance anywhere in British Columbia and Alberta.
Marcus is also known for his interprovincial and international family law work. He has successfully represented clients in cases involving the application of the Hague Convention on International Child Abduction. He regularly represents clients involved in jurisdictional conflicts between Alberta and British Columbia. Marcus has also represented clients with family law or divorce claims involving the United States, Australia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Germany, Iran, India, the United Arab Emirates and Mexico. He has provided expert opinion evidence to the High Court of London England on an international child welfare case.
Marcus sits on the Canadian Bar Association B.C. committee for unbundled legal services, and he has been a public advocate for alternative legal services and alternative dispute resolution. He has appeared on CBC, Global News, Joy T.V., CHQR Calgary, 630 CHED Edmonton, Real Talk with Ryan Jespersen and he has been featured in The Lawyers Daily, The Globe and Mail, Canadian Lawyer Magazine and CBC Opinions.
About Chyanne Sharma
Chyanne Sharma is a certified legal coach and litigation family lawyer who is driven by her passion to help people. She is passionate about helping self-represented litigants find their voice and confidence as they navigate through the justice system. She is dedicated to working with individuals closely by creating strategy plans unique to their family law matter.
Chyanne recognizes that the justice system can be intimidating and is highly skilled at coaching her clients through one of the most difficult times of their lives. While her initial approach is to support her clients to resolve their family law matters reasonably and amicably, she understands that coaching clients to empower them in court is sometimes necessary. Chyanne has appeared in the Provincial Court and Supreme Court of BC and has successfully run family law trials. Chyanne obtained her Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science and History at the University of Victoria. Thereafter, she received her Juris Doctor from Bond University where she graduated with distinction. She has several years of family law experience as a legal assistant and paralegal prior to becoming a family lawyer and legal coach.
Chyanne is an executive member on the Canadian Bar Association B.C. committee for unbundled legal services and is committed to working with legal organizations to create different types of resources and legal services available to help close the access to justice gap.
