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6 Obiter Dicta
David Wiseman studies the effect of paralegals
on creating access to justice
canadian forum on civil justice ›
contributor
A
midst a gener ally perceived crisis in
access to justice, increasing emphasis has
recently been placed on the potential role
of paralegals to offer affordable, efficient,
and effective legal assistance to people with unmet
legal needs. The Paralegals and Access to Justice case
study was initiated by Professor David Wiseman of
University of Ottawa, Faculty of Common Law, to
investigate the extent to which paralegals are contributing to access to justice by providing fair and
cost-effective dispute resolution in residential tenancy disputes. Professor Wiseman’s case study is
part of the Cost of Justice project led by the Canadian
Forum on Civil Justice.*
The qualitative part of the study focuses on the
general prevalence of legal, paralegal, and in-person representation in residential tenancy disputes
in Ottawa. The quantitative part of the study identifies the distribution of paralegal and other representation between landlords and tenants to provide
a perspective on the extent to which paralegals are
re-configuring the costs of justice. Residential tenancy disputes are the third most frequently cited
area of practice of paralegals, as reported by a 2012
review of the first five years of Law Society of Upper
Canada’s regulation of paralegals.
Although residential tenancy disputes are typically brought to specialized provincial administrative tribunals such as Ontario’s Landlord and Tenant
Board, instead of the courts, it does not necessarily mean that these tribunals and the associated
legal rules are accessible enough. Governmentfunded legal assistance for these types of disputes
is extremely limited, and private lawyers are too
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expensive. The complexity of the tribunal process
suggests paralegals could be a significant benefit for
low-income tenants in navigating the dispute resolution system.
The Paralegals and Access to Justice project
grew out of a concern raised by participants in the
Housing Justice Program, a collaborative initiative
between members of Ottawa ACORN and law students at the University of Ottawa. The Program recognized that paralegals were playing an important
role in improving the general cost and accessibility
of justice, but more for landlords than tenants. Thus,
the impetus of the study is based on the concern of
whether paralegals are playing a role in disproportionately improving access to justice for landlords,
thereby exacerbating the power imbalances that
already exist between landlords and low-income
tenants. If any such disproportion in access to justice
is identified, the study aims to consider its causes
and effects.
Professor David Wiseman’s principal areas of
research and activity are access to justice, social
and economic human rights, and the institutional
competence of courts in Charter litigation. He was
previously a member of the SSHRC-CURA Social
Rights Accountability Project and is currently a faculty liaison to the Housing Justice Program. He has
drafted submissions to law societies and government
law reform bodies in Canada and Australia and has
appeared before United Nations human rights treaty
monitoring bodies. At the University of Ottawa,
Professor Wiseman teaches Property, Trust, and
Access to Justice.
*The Cost of Justice project (2011¬16) examines the
social and economic costs of Canada’s justice system.
Comprised of leading access to justice researchers
investigating the various dimensions of cost across
the country, the Cost of Justice project is producing empirical data that will inform the future of
access to justice in Canada. The Cost of Justice project is funded by a one million dollar grant from the
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of
Canada. For more details please visit www.cfcj-fcjc.
org/cost-of-justice. u
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