The Justice Crisis

Trevor C.W. Farrow is a professor and former associate dean at Osgoode Hall Law School, and the chair of the Canadian Forum on Civil Justice. His books include Civil Justice, Privatization, and Democracy and The Theory and Practice of Representative Negotiation (with Colleen Hanycz and Frederick H. Zemans), and he is a co-editor of The Courts and Beyond: The Architecture of Justice in Transition (with Patrick Molinari).

Lesley A. Jacobs is vice-president of research and innovation at Ontario Tech University and York Research Chair in Human Rights and Access to Justice at York University, where he is currently a professor on leave. He was appointed a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (FRSC) in 2017 and has written or edited numerous books, most recently Grey Zones in International Economic Law and Global Governance (with Daniel Drache).

Contributors: Carolyn Carter, Thomas A. Cromwell, Ab Currie, Matthew Dylag, Heather Heavin, Devon Kapoor, Michaela Keet, Jennifer Koshan, Herbert M. Kritzer, Moktar Lamari, Marylène Leduc, M. Jerry McHale, Lisa Moore, Janet Mosher, Pierre Noreau, Mitchell Perlmutter, Catherine Piché, Noel Semple, Lorne Sossin, Michael Trebilcock, Wanda Wiegers, David Wiseman

Canada needs more than a nudge on civil justice reform. It needs a civil justice movement. This book is a model that will help inform reform efforts.

Rather than reiterating the rhetoric of the access to justice crisis in Canada, this volume provides readers with both a sophisticated portrait of the complexity of the problem and glimpses of the structural reforms that are essential if we are to make any genuine progress.

Professor Dame Hazel Genn, author of Paths to Justice: What People Do and Think about Going to Law:

Farrow and Jacobs are to be congratulated on bringing together a wealth of new empirical evidence, shining an original light on the access to justice crisis in civil and family law. The volume provides a rich source of innovative thinking about the complex issues of cost and value of access to justice, while underlining the need for better evidence to support service and system transformation.

Beverley McLachlin, former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada:

The Justice Crisis is required reading for anyone who desires a just society. At once thoughtful and bold, this compendium offers insightful ideas on how we can take access to justice from slogan to reality.