Navigating the Paths to Justice: A Study on the Role of Social Supports in Responding to Justiciable Events

Abstract

This article reports the results of an in-depth qualitative study of advice-seeking behaviours in a large Canadian city. Nine participants were recruited from neighbourhood houses in the Vancouver area to discuss their experiences in responding to one of two kinds of justiciable event: a personal injury or a government benefits problem. The paper offers a detailed discussion of nuances in how individuals experienced, characterized, and took action in response to their justiciable problem. Notably, many of the research participants spoke about the importance of social supports and the contingent nature of those supports, both in understanding what they had experienced and in deciding how to respond. This finding suggests that future research on unmet legal needs and advice-seeking behaviour should more explicitly consider the implications of individuals’ social embeddedness in responding to access to justice problems