Law and the Business of Justice: Access to Justice and the Profession/Business Divide
![handle is hein.journals/jleq11 and id is 11 raw text is: Law and the Business of Justice: Access to Justice and
the Profession/Business Divide
Andrew Pilliar*
The lack of access to civil justice represents, in the words of the chief
justice of Canada, the most significant challenge to our justice system.'
The importance of ensuring that every man, woman, and child has
access to [the justice] system; not merely access on paper, but actual,
meaningful, and substantive access to justice is a subject that has
received considerable attention from members of the judiciary, the bar,
and legal academics in recent years.2 In 2013, three significant reports
were released that addressed the problem of access to civil justice in
Canada: (1) Julie Macfarlane's study of self-represented litigants; (2) the
final report of the National Action Committee on Access to Justice in
Civil and Family Matters; and (3) the Canadian Bar Association's (CBA)
report on Reaching Equal Justice.3 These reports add to a long list of
reports on access to justice in Canada.4
* Andrew Pilliar, PhD student, Faculty of Law, University of British Columbia (UBC).
My thanks to Anna Lund, William Damon, Pitman Potter, and the editors of the
Journal of Law & Equality for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article.
Thanks also to the participants at the UBC Faculty of Law Graduate Student
Conference in May 2013, participants at the Canadian Law and Society Association
annual meeting in July 2013, participants at the University of Saskatchewan College
of Law conference The Power in Law? in November 2013, and participants in the
Journal of Law & Equality colloquium in November 2013 for comments on the
presentations, which include many of the ideas in this article. Thanks also to Mary
Liston and Emma Cunliffe for continued support. I acknowledge the support of the
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. All errors are mine.
1 The Right Honourable Beverley McLachlin, Foreword in Michael Trebilcock,
Anthony Duggan, and Lorne Sossin, eds, Middle Income Access to Justice (Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, 2012) ix at ix.
2 See, for example, Trebilcock, Duggan, and Sossin, supra note 1.
3 Julie Macfarlane, The National Self-Represented Litigants Project: Identifying and
Meeting the Needs ofSelf-Represented Litigants, Final Report (Kingsville, ON: 2013);
Access to Civil and Family Justice: A Roadmap for Change (Ottawa: Action
Comiittee on Access to Justice in Civil and Family Matters, 2013) [Roadmap for
Change]; Reaching Equal Justice: An Invitation to Envision and Act, Final Report
(Ottawa: Canadian Bar Association (CBA), 2013) [Reaching Equal Justice].
4 See, for example, Legal Services Society, Making Justice Work: Improving Access
and Outcomes for British Columbians - Report to the Minister ofJustice and Attorney
General the Honourable Shirley Bond (Vancouver: Legal Services Society, 2012);
Leonard T. Doust, Foundation for Change: Report of the Public Commission on Legal
Aid in British Columbia (Vancouver: Public Commission on Legal Aid, 2011); Melina](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/jleq11&div=5&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Law and the Business of Justice: Access to Justice and the Profession/Business Divide
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