Skip to main content Skip to search Skip to search

Law Civil Law

The Justice Crisis

The Cost and Value of Accessing Law

edited by Trevor C.W. Farrow & Lesley A. Jacobs

Publisher
UBC Press
Initial publish date
Sep 2020
Category
Civil Law, General
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9780774863575
    Publish Date
    Sep 2020
    List Price
    $89.95
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9780774863605
    Publish Date
    Nov 2020
    List Price
    $99.00
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9780774863582
    Publish Date
    May 2021
    List Price
    $39.95

Classroom Resources

Where to buy it

Description

Unfulfilled legal needs are at a tipping point in many parts of the Canadian justice system and around the world. The Justice Crisis assesses what is and isn’t working in an effort to improve a fundamental right of democratic citizenship: access to civil and family justice.

 

Meaningful access is often a question of providing pathways to resolving everyday legal issues. The availability of justice services that aren’t only tied to the courts and lawyers – such as public education on the law, alternative dispute settlement, and paralegal support – is therefore an important concern.

 

Contributors to this wide-ranging overview of new empirical research address several key justice issues: the extent and cost of unmet legal needs; the role of public funding; connections between legal and social exclusion among vulnerable populations; the value of new legal pathways; the provision of justice services beyond the courts and lawyers; and the need for a culture change within the justice system. Their findings can inform initiatives to improve access to justice within the Canadian system and beyond.

About the authors

Trevor C.W. Farrow, AB, BA/MA, LLB, LLM, PhD, is an associate professor at Osgoode Hall Law School. His teaching and research focus on the administration of civil justice, including legal process, legal and judicial ethics, development, and globalization.

 

Trevor C.W. Farrow's profile page

Les Jacobs is professor of law and society and political science, and director of the Institute for Social Research at York University. He is also executive director of the Canadian Forum on Civil Justice, the country’s leading pan-Canadian think tank devoted to access-to-justice issues, housed at Osgoode Hall Law School. He has held a range of distinguished visiting appointments at other universities, including Harvard Law School; the Oxford Centre for Socio-Legal Studies; the Law Commission of Canada; the University of California, Berkeley; the University of Toronto; Emory University; and Waseda Law School, Tokyo. His many other books include Rights and Deprivation (1993); The Democratic Politics of Vision (1997); Pursuing Equal Opportunities (2004); Balancing Competing Human Rights in a Diverse Society (2012); and Linking Global Trade and Human Rights: New Policy Space in Hard Economic Times (2014).

Lesley A. Jacobs' profile page

Awards

  • Short-listed, Walter Owen Book Prize, The Canadian Foundation for Legal Research

Editorial Reviews

"This book is a useful resource on the costs of justice and also lays out some of the challenges in achieving meaningful access to justice."

Slaw Magazine