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Across Canada, thousands of people appear in court every day without a lawyer — not by choice, but because legal representation is financially out of reach. They struggle through the system, leading to delays and increased frustration for individuals and for the justice system as a whole.

The National Self-Represented Litigants Project (NSRLP) exists to ensure those individuals are not left to navigate the justice system completely alone. Through national research, free public legal education, and data collection and reporting, the NSRLP supports self-represented litigants (SRLs) and contributes to a justice system that functions more fairly and efficiently for everyone.

We are reaching out to invite your firm to participate in a focused, collective initiative:

The $100 from 1000 Lawyers Challenge

If 1000 lawyers across Canada each contribute $100 this year, we can help stabilize national SRL services. Because NSRLP’s work is delivered nationally and accessed at scale, even modest individual contributions have an outsized impact — sustaining free research, public legal education, and data relied on by tens of thousands of SRLs each year.

You don’t need to be a senior partner.
You don’t need to make a major gift.
You simply need to believe that justice should not depend on income.

This challenge reflects a shared professional responsibility. The NSRLP does the work that:

• courts cannot do on their own;
• clinics cannot scale nationally; and
• pro bono efforts, while essential, cannot broadly reach.

Firm Match Challenge (Optional)
Firms that wish to deepen their participation may choose to take part in the Firm Match Challenge by matching the $100 gifts made by their lawyers, up to a cap set by the firm. This optional match allows firms to amplify their lawyers’ individual contributions while reinforcing a collective commitment to strengthening access to justice.

Your firm’s participation supports:

• the School for Family Litigants, providing plain-language legal education and live Q&A panels;
• Canada’s only national directory of professionals assisting SRLs;
• practical guides used by thousands of SRLs each year; and
• Canada’s only longitudinal dataset on SRL experiences, informing courts and policymakers.

Lawyers and firms who participate may opt to be recognized on the NSRLP website as Access to Justice Supporters, alongside others who have stepped up.

You do not need to make a major gift to make a meaningful difference.
You simply need to believe that justice should not depend on income.

We invite you to join us.

Give $100. Be counted. Strengthen access to justice.