The new head of the independent Law Commission of Ontario will likely address the immense cost of justice for average citizens, something the old commission was trying to do when it was abolished a decade ago.

Patricia Hughes, former dean of the University of Calgary's law school, was first attracted to legal reform during the women's movement of the 1970s.

"It's important to have an independent body that can develop an understanding of where there needs to be law reform, so that it keeps current and responds to new needs in society," Hughes said in an interview on Friday. Her appointment was to be announced today.

The Ontario Law Reform Commission was established in 1964 as the first independent legal think-tank in Canada. The provincial government under Mike Harris slashed it in the budget cuts of 1995.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government abolished the federal equivalent of the law reform commission last year.

"I think a commission like this can bring real scrutiny to bear," said Patrick Monahan, dean of Osgoode Hall Law School. "And it's not beholden to any one constituency, whether that be lawyers, judges or government."

Monahan, chair of the new commission's board of governors, said governments keep killing law commissions because, "They don't necessarily like having independent and credible voices on law reform out there in the community."

He added the commission will examine the high price of lawyers and the immense complexity of the legal system to determine how best to improve access.

Attorney General Michael Bryant revived the commission in November as the Law Commission of Ontario, a joint effort of the government and Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, the Law Foundation of Ontario, the Law Society of Upper Canada, Ontario's other law schools, and the legal community.

"We have an unprecedented number of unrepresented litigants, and the cost and delay of litigation seems only to increase," he said Friday. "There's much for all branches of the justice system to do and the law commission is a powerful voice to point us in the right direction."

Ontario's law reform commission was seen by critics as an advocate of liberal social policies, such as banning workplace drug tests or expanding benefits to same-sex couples. Hughes said this was a misconception on the part of the Harris government. "In a liberal democratic society you tend to think of the law as progressive," she said, but added a law commission does not only respond to left-wing issues.

Her four-year term starts Sept. 15.