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52 Osgoode Hall L. J. 9 (2014-2016)

handle is hein.journals/ohlj52 and id is 1 raw text is: 



























No Lawyer for a Hundred Miles?

Mapping the New Geography of Access of

Justice in Canada1




JAMIE BAXTER & ALBERT YOON*


Recent concerns about the geography of access to justice in Canada have focused on the
dwindling number of lawyers in rural and remote areas, raising anxieties about the profes-
sion's inability to meet current and future demands for localized legal services. These
concerns have motivated a range of policy responses that aim to improve the education,
training, recruitment and retention of practitioners in underserved areas. We surveyed
lawyers across Ontario to better understand their physical proximityto clients and how, if at
all, that proximity promotes access to justice. We find that lawyers' scope of practice varies
based on a number of factors, and in several areas of law lawyers serve clients beyond their
immediate locality. Our results suggest that debates about the geography of access should
be premised on the goal of territorial justice as an equitable distribution of legal services
rather than a narrower emphasis on the equal distribution of lawyers.

La geographie changeante de Vacces a [a justice au Canada entraine aujourd'hui de
nouvelles preoccupations, car de moins en moins d'avocats frequentent les campagnes et
les regions eloignees du pays, ce qui fait douter de Vaptitude de [a profession a remplir les
besoins actuels et futurs des services juridiques en region. Ces preoccupations motivent une
gamme de politiques qui ont pour objectif d'ameliorer [a conscientisation, [a formation, le



    Assistant Professor of Law, Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie University; Professor of Law,
    University of Toronto Faculty of Law. The authors thank the Law Society of Upper Canada
    for its assistance in distributing the authors' survey to its members. Yoon thanks the Law
    School Admissions Council and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of
    Canada for their generous research support. All errors are the authors' responsibility.


1.   Our title alludes to a recent article in the New York Times. See Ethan Bronner, No Lawyer for
     100 Country Miles, So One Rural State Offers Pay, The New York Times (9Apil2013) Al.

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