Amidst a generally perceived crisis in access to justice, increasing emphasis has recently been placed on the potential role of paralegals to offer affordable, efficient, and effective legal assistance to people with unmet legal needs. The Paralegals and Access to Justice case study was initiated by Professor David Wiseman of University of Ottawa, Faculty of Common Law, to investigate the extent to which paralegals are contributing to access to justice by providing fair and cost-effective dispute resolution in residential tenancy disputes. Professor Wiseman’s case study is part of the Cost of Justice project led by the Canadian Forum on Civil Justice.*
The qualitative part of the study focuses on the general prevalence of legal, paralegal, and in-person representation in residential tenancy disputes in Ottawa. The quantitative part of the study identifies the distribution of paralegal and other representation between landlords and tenants to provide a perspective on the extent to which paralegals are re-configuring the costs of justice. Residential tenancy disputes are the third most frequently cited area of practice of paralegals, as reported by a 2012 review of the first five years of Law Society of Upper Canada’s regulation of paralegals.
Although residential tenancy disputes are typically brought to specialized provincial administrative tribunals such as Ontario’s Landlord and Tenant Board, instead of the courts, it does not necessarily mean that these tribunals and the associated legal rules are accessible enough. Government-funded legal assistance for these types of disputes is extremely limited, and private lawyers are too expensive. The complexity of the tribunal process suggests paralegals could be a significant benefit for low-income tenants in navigating the dispute resolution system.
The Paralegals and Access to Justice project grew out of a concern raised by participants in the Housing Justice Program, a collaborative initiative between members of Ottawa ACORN and law students at the University of Ottawa. The Program recognized that paralegals were playing an important role in improving the general cost and accessibility of justice, but more for landlords than tenants. Thus, the impetus of the study is based on the concern of whether paralegals are playing a role in disproportionately improving access to justice for landlords, thereby exacerbating the power imbalances that already exist between landlords and low-income tenants. If any such disproportion in access to justice is identified, the study aims to consider its causes and effects.
Professor David Wiseman’s principal areas of research and activity are access to justice, social and economic human rights, and the institutional competence of courts in Charter litigation. He was previously a member of the SSHRC-CURA Social Rights Accountability Project and is currently a faculty liaison to the Housing Justice Program. He has drafted submissions to law societies and government law reform bodies in Canada and Australia and has appeared before United Nations human rights treaty monitoring bodies. At the University of Ottawa, Professor Wiseman teaches Property, Trust, and Access to Justice.
*The Cost of Justice project (2011–16) examines the social and economic costs of Canada’s justice system. Comprised of leading access to justice researchers investigating the various dimensions of cost across the country, the Cost of Justice project is producing empirical data that will inform the future of access to justice in Canada. The Cost of Justice project is funded by a one million dollar grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. For more details please visit www.cfcj-fcjc.org/cost-of-justice.