NEWS
4 Obiter Dicta
The “Cost of Justice” Project
Data Collection is Complete
hannah de jong ›
communications assistant, cfcj
T
h e c a na di a n foru m on Civil Justice
recently completed a national study that surveyed over three thousand Canadians about
their everyday legal problems. The survey
is part of “The Cost of Justice: Weighing the Cost of
Fair and Effective Resolution to Legal Problems” —
an interdisciplinary, five-year long study funded by
the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council
of Canada. The project seeks to fill the current void
of evidence-based information on the economic and
social costs of pursuing, or not pursuing, justice
through various dispute resolution and prevention
pathways.
The Cost of Justice Project is guided by the following key questions:
• What does the civil justice system cost (institutionally and to individual litigants)?
• Who does it serve?
• How well is it meeting the needs of users?
• What is the price of failing to meet the legal needs
of Canadians?
We spoke with respondents across the country and
found that legal problems are pervasive in the lives of
Canadians. Here are some of our initial findings:
• Over 35% of people reported stress, health,
family and/or social issues as a result of experiencing legal problems.
• Over a three-year period over 50% of adults
reported experiencing one or more legal
problems.
• The most common problems were related to consumer, debt, and employment issues.
It is clear from these early results that having one
or more legal problems is a significant burden and
stressor on Canadians, and that the multi-faceted
costs of pursuing justice are high. Deeper survey
analysis is currently underway and we look forward
to having the results from this data inform accessto-justice action in the courts, as well as within the
broader justice and socio-legal scholarly community.
Watch for more updates from this and other studies within the Cost of Justice Project in the coming
months.
To find out more about the exciting and innovative
research happening at the CFCJ, visit www.cfcj-fcjc.
org, like us on Facebook, and follow us on Twitter @
CFCJ_FCJC. u
Mark Your Calendar for #MHAW2014
A week of engaging discussions and activities on various
mental health topics
laura wilson › contributor
M
e n ta l h e a lt h awa r e n e s s Week
is right around the corner! With
five days of action-packed activities, #MHAW2014 kicks off on Monday,
October 20 and will run until Friday, October 24.
The featured events range from a group of distinguished panellists sharing their insights into mental
health within the legal profession, to a movie screening, with so many exciting and engaging events in
between.
The aim of this week is to raise awareness of mental
health issues both at Osgoode and within the broader
community. Mental health issues impact our communities, our families, and ourselves, be it directly
or vicariously. As we engage with members of the
broader community, we may find that mental health
issues impact our clients. The Week’s programming
is designed to create a safe, inclusive space where,
introspectively, we can challenge the ways that we
identify people who have mental health differences
as