The Legal Problems of Everyday Life: The Nature, Extent and Consequences of Justiciable Problems Experienced by Canadians

The purpose of this project is to inform policy makers about the incidence of civil justice problems and the extent of unmet need for assistance that justiciable problems in civil matters might represent. The study assumes a broad view of civil justice problems and unmet need. The broad view looks at the problem of civil justice and access to justice in terms of the prevalence of civil justice problems in the population. This involves identifying, by means of a sample survey, civil justice problems people have experienced that meet some reasonable threshold of seriousness. The broad view contrasts with the narrow view of civil justice and access to the justice system. The narrow view takes as a starting point the problems that come to the attention of the courts or other formal dispute resolution mechanisms

Ten Ideas for Community Based Justice

Community-based legal services have long been a part of national legal services programs in countries that introduced legal aid programs in the early years of the access to justice movement. Because of inadequate funding for legal services the pressure to do more with less has been a constant in legal aid and access to justice services. This rationing of resources has driven much creativity, innovation and a wealth of ideas for improving the delivery of legal services and continues to do so. The ten ideas about community-based justice presented in this short paper are a small part of that much larger world. They are derived from projects exploring innovative approaches to the delivery of legal services carried out over several years with several community legal clinics in Ontario, Canada.1 The ten ideas are not a systematic summary of research results or of lessons learned. They are the main ideas that emerged in the early development of the projects, in observing the projects through the pilot phases and understanding the outcomes

Engaging the Power of Community to Expand Legal Services to Low-Income Ontarians

The clinic–intermediary partnerships/legal health check-up is an approach to service delivery that recognizes the need to create a strong mechanism to achieve outreach and to provide holistic and integrated services to disadvantaged people. This is a response to a solid body of research, consistent with much clinical experience by practitioners, that there is a high prevalence of unmet legal need among the population, that people often do not recognize the legal issues embedded in the everyday problems they experience, that for this and other reasons they typically do not seek appropriate assistance with legal problems in a timely manner, and that people frequently experience clusters of inter-related legal and nonlegal problems that are often difficult to deal with in isolation. These problems are part of the complex matrix of poverty; providing legal services in a way that responds to these aspects of legal problems can play a role in alleviating the conditions of disadvantagedpeople

Nudging the Paradigm Shift, Everyday Legal Problems in Canada

The subject of this paper is the everyday legal problems experienced by the public in Canada. This area of study is best understood by distinguishing it from the legal problems that are adjudicated in the courts or resolved by lawyers. The term everyday legal problem1 derives from Hazel Genn’s term, justiciable events.2 A justiciable event is a problem or issue that occurs in the normal life of an individual: for example buying and selling, entering into a contract, gaining and losing employment, forming or dissolving domestic relationships that involve some measure of dependency, managing the medical or financial affairs of another person, providing or obtaining services. In short, justiciable events occur in all the normal transactions and transitions of everyday life. A defining feature of this area of research is that it views legal problems from the point of view of the people experiencing them. From this point of view a legal problem does not begin when a statement of claim is filed, when a court appearance occurs or when a lawyer provides some professional service. A legal problem has a natural history in people’s lives as they encounter problems navigating life’s normal activities. Since we live in what may be described as a legally dense world3 in which there is a legal framework related to nearly everything, there are legal aspects to many of the ordinary things people do. The extent to which these become legal problems, what people do about them and what happens as a result of experiencing everyday legal problems are the basic questions addressed by this and other studies in the contemporary body of legal problems research

You Have to Find them First and That’s a People-Centered Process: Learning about People-Centered Justice through the Rural Mobile Law Van

This paper is an assessment of the Mobile Rural Law Van project at the mid-point of a three-year project, turning the lens of people-centricity on the project. The observations on people-centricity do not represent the results of structured research in which people centricity is defined, indicators developed and measured. Rather, it is part of the accumulating lessons learned as the project matures over time

A National Survey of the Civil Justice Problems of Low and Moderate Income Canadians: Incidence and Patterns

This is a study of problems having legal aspects experienced by low and moderate income Canadians. The main objectives of the study are to determine the incidence of law-related problems among this segment of the population and the social and demographic groups that are most vulnerable to problems. The paper attempts to shed some light on that very elusive subject, unmet need for assistance with law-related problems

Strengths and Opportunities for Sustainability

At the mid-point of this three-year pilot project, the evidence suggests that the Mobile Rural Law Van is accomplishing its primary objective of better meeting the needs of people in rural Wellington County and North Halton. Is the success after two summers and one winter of operation sustainable? Sustainability is about more than just money, more than cost and about cost per person served. Sustainability depends on how the project operates and how it is connected with the community being served. This paper identifies the non-monetary factors that make the Law Van project sustainable, suggesting adjustments that might be made to improve the sustainability of a service that in the initial period has been successful in meeting the legal and related non-legal needs of the public

Extending the Reach of Legal Aid: Report on the Pilot Phase of the Legal Health Check-up Project

Research makes clear that legal service delivery, especially to the poor, fails dramatically if clients must find their own way to legal aid offices. The Legal Health Check-Up project addresses this by extending legal aid in partnership with trusted intermediary groups that are part of the everyday world of disadvantaged groups. These intermediaries make an active offer of legal service.It is hoped that the intermediaries will go beyond the gateway roles of problem-spotting and legal referral to – with the legal aid clinic – provide holistic and integrated legal services that otherwise would not be available