Everyday Legal Problems Survey
In order to explore the nature and extent of self-reported legal problems by Canadian adults eighteen years of age and older, the Canadian Forum on Civil Justice (CFCJ), located at Osgoode Hall Law School, conducted a national legal problems survey.
The logic underlying the decision to pursue this research is that a legal problem does not begin when first contact is made with the formal justice system or when a lawyer’s services are engaged. Rather, legal problems are rooted in the normal events of everyday life. To fully understand the nature and extent of legal problems experienced by the public, research must start when the natural history of legal problems begin, in the everyday lives of individuals.
Based on standard definitions established in the pioneering studies in this body of research—The Legal Needs of the American Public, American Bar Association, 1994 and Paths to Justice: What People Do and Think About Going to Law, Hazel Genn, 1999— legal problems are still legal in nature even if people do not recognize the legal aspects of the problem or do not engage any part of the formal justice system in an attempt to resolve them.
In the CFCJ’s legal problems survey, respondents were asked if they had experienced any of eighty-four different problem scenarios, each carefully worded to ensure that they had justiciable content. Survey data was collected between September 2013 and April 2014 from a sample size of more than three thousand persons.
The results of the survey indicate that within a three-year period, forty-seven percent of adult Canadians will experience one or more legal problems they consider to be serious and difficult to resolve.
Only seven percent of the sample said they went to court or to a tribunal to resolve the problem and among respondents who said they went to the formal justice system, sixty-five percent said they were represented. Considering other paths to justice pursued by respondents—self-help and non-legal advice from various organizations—forty-three percent of respondents who said the problem had been resolved felt the outcome was not fair. Almost one third of respondents said they had achieved little or none of what they had expected in the outcome.
The dissatisfaction of so many Canadians following the resolution of a legal problem signals an access to justice problem in Canada. The data suggests that we have to do better, all around, in providing people with timely and appropriate solutions to particular problems. This is often referred to as a continuum of service approach. Increasing the legal capability of the public, early intervention and building more effective triage, and referral mechanisms to get the right fit between the problem and the type of assistance are all parts of the solution. Additionally, this may involve having a close look at legal representation, including the linkages between legal representation and public legal information or efforts at prevention and problem management that precede legal representation in the natural history of a legal problem. Following an examination of the prognosis of a legal problem, a considerable investment will be needed in alternative dispute resolution services so more Canadians can avoid the costly or possibly disappointing results of the formal legal system.
*The Canadian Forum on Civil Justice Everyday Legal Problems survey is part of the larger SSHRC funded CURA project, The Costs of Justice: Weighing the Costs of Fair and Effective Resolution to Legal Problems (www.cfcj-fcjc.org/cost-of-justice)
This article was written by Ab Currie, Ph.D., Senior Research Fellow at the Canadian Forum on Civil Justice. Parts of this article were revised by Lisa Moore and Quin Gilbert-Walters, Canadian Forum on Civil Justice.