Does Access to Justice Include Access to Judges?

Written by Jennifer Leitch, NSRLP Executive Director; originally published on Slaw, Canada’s online legal magazine.

At the beginning of January, the Globe and Mail ran an article about the Chief Justice of Ontario’s visits to communities across Ontario, part of an outreach undertaking. From Chief Justice Tulloch’s perspective, this type of initiative provides the members of the bench with an opportunity to gain a, “better understanding of the people we are serving.”

While this is a crucial consideration for adjudicators, such outreach serves to benefit communities as well. Not only does it humanize the law by putting an actual face on justice, but it serves to humanize the individuals who are engaged in interpreting and applying the law. As such, these outreach and community-level dialogue efforts provide both individualized as well as systemic benefits.

As Executive Director of the NSRLP, I often see first-hand the confusion, mistrust and, in some cases, frustration expressed by self-represented litigants (SRLs) who are compelled to engage in complex legal processes on their own. As well as being inexperienced in legal processes and unfamiliar with the substantive legal rules, many SRLs are unfamiliar with and unaccustomed to legal decision-making as a process.

And why should they be? Without being directly engaged in a legal matter that requires adjudication, most people would not be able to explain what judges are doing when they adjudicate. And to a certain extent, that is reflective of the role and position of judges in our society – in order to signal impartiality and independence, they are in effect removed from public discourse and view. However, for the thousands of SRLs who do interact with the courts, a better understanding of what judges do and how they do it could serve to address some of their assumptions and concerns.

Early on, from their time as law students, lawyers regularly participate in court processes; they quickly gain an understanding of the judicial system. Additionally, in the course of their professional lives (and even as law students), they have a variety of opportunities to hear from judges at conferences and speaking engagements arranged by organizations like the Ontario Bar Association, the Canadian Bar Association, and a host of specific practice-area events as well as social functions. As a result, they are very familiar with the judicial enterprise (and with many individual judges) and, in fact, advise their clients on the judicial exercise. But there are no such opportunities for the multitude of individuals who enter courtrooms without legal representation.

In access to justice terms, lawyers are the ‘repeat players’ in the legal system, familiar with its organization and operation. In contrast, SRLs are more often than not ‘one-shotters,’ who must engage with a host of institutional insiders in addressing their legal matter, while themselves generally only appearing in that one matter. Thus, their ability to both understand and navigate the process is extremely limited. For most of these individuals (and there are thousands of them), judges remain mythical creatures, who render decisions that impact them in ways that are foreign to the SRL.

Practically speaking, SRLs may be able to access a broad range of legal information sources, but they almost never hear what is actually expected of them by those adjudicating their cases. Again, the same is not true of lawyers, who through continuing legal education programs are often able to appreciate the nature of judicial expectation. Notwithstanding this difference, SRLs are told again and again that they will not be treated differently from lawyer-assisted litigants. In effect, they are expected to know the law and the practice as a lawyer would, without the multitude of events and connections that contribute to lawyers’ abilities to effectively practice law.

This uneven access to the bench compounds the advantages to represented parties and the disadvantages experienced by unrepresented parties. In light of this institutional disparity, it is not surprising that SRLs may feel that disadvantage both personally and acutely; it works to heighten their anxiety and felt sense of outsideness.

On a systemic level, humanizing the decision-making process serves a more immediate and urgent function: to address the mistrust that people may hold about our democratic institutions more broadly. In a moment when it seems as if many people are questioning the legitimacy of the existing political system and struggling to see how they are heard as part of the larger democratic endeavour, measured efforts by legal officials to engage with people from different walks of life could serve to counter the mistrust and disengagement.

Moreover, hearing directly from those engaged in decision-making serves to demystify the work undertaken in legal institutions. This in turn provides opportunities for those subject to the decision-making process to better understand and participate in that process. At its most basic, engagement, dialogue, and the exchange of perspectives could serve to strengthen trust in and commitment to those institutions.

Keeping that in mind, the NSRLP has embarked on several initiatives that are directed toward breaking down some of these access to justice barriers. In 2022, the NSRLP launched its pilot version of the ‘School for Family Litigants.’ This project included a series of online lectures provided by different experts in the family law regime including lawyers, academics, law librarians, and judges. The subject matter of the lectures focused on different aspects of the family litigation process, were free to the public, and directed at SRLs who were in the process of representing themselves in family law matters. Each individual lecture was followed by a question-and-answer period (the experts’ responses were limited to legal information as opposed to legal advice).

Family court judges participated in several of these lectures and Q&As. In this capacity, family law SRLs had a rare opportunity to hear from and speak directly with the adjudicators most familiar with their type of legal issue. The SRLs found this to be an invaluable experience. It also provided a rare opportunity for the members of the judiciary to understand how SRLs interpret the process, and where they struggle the most. In this respect, the SRLs were also humanized – seen as more than legal system disrupters or agitators (or, at a minimum, individuals who choose to be there), and rather as regular people attempting to resolve some of the most challenging problems in their lives without adequate professional assistance.

Additionally, in November 2023 the NSRLP, in partnership with the Canadian Institute for the Administration of Justice (CIAJ), developed a day-long webinar on access to justice that engaged both SRLs and members of the bench. Again, this provided an opportunity (outside the courtroom) for SRLs to better understand what judges are doing when they adjudicate, and for judges to better understand the nature of the challenges faced by SRLs.

Finally, and most recently, the NSRLP hosted a webinar in late 2025 on artificial intelligence that included the ‘view’ from the bench with respect to issues of AI and evidence. In all these initiatives, the NSRLP has encouraged the exchange of perspectives as between those seeking to access to the civil justice system and those working within it.

However, it is important to note that this work is not without its challenges. First and foremost, such initiatives do not solve all SRL issues. There must also be a balance between the need to break down barriers and encourage access, and the need to not compromise judicial independence. And again, because many SRLs struggle to make sense of a complex legal system with very little or no guidance, there is anxiety, stress and sometimes frustration, which individuals may direct at institutional insiders. While this may be understandable, it cannot be sanctioned.

An exchange between those on the inside of the institution and those attempting to access it from without requires a respectful and productive exchange. Moreover, it is important to remember that while some individuals may express frustration, the majority of those accessing justice on their own are primarily interested in understanding how the process works, learning how they might participate effectively, and obtaining a reasonable outcome.

So, kudos to Chief Justice Tulloch for undertaking this community engagement, and contributing to the dismantling of some of the barriers that exist in the legal system. Perhaps the lesson learned from this and other similar endeavours might be to think further about how we humanize the law, and all those professionals engaged in its delivery and processes.