CLEO Discussion Paper on Community-Based Access to Justice

CLEO, the Community Legal Education Ontario, has published a discussion paper on Community Justice Help: Advancing Community-Based Access to Justice.

It looks at the kinds of help frontline workers in community organizations can offer Ontario citizens with low incomes and other social disadvantages when they face law-related problems:

"The significant contribution of community workers to improving access to justice has been recognized more in recent years, prompting us to explore how their work could be better enabled and supported. In this paper, we propose a framework that describes the key elements of good quality community justice help. The framework includes three key features: community justice helpers have the knowledge, skills and experience they need; they work within a not-for-profit organization and an ethical infrastructure; and, they provide holistic support to meet clients’ multi-dimensional needs. The framework also includes markers or indicators for each feature."

"We recommend that this framework be supported by providers of community justice help, as well as by other partners, including licensed legal service providers, funders of community-based access to justice programs, the Law Society of Ontario (LSO) and other bodies that regulate or support legal, social, community or other relevant services (...)"

"In addition to reviewing relevant literature, we conducted interviews with key staff from community-based organizations on their practices. We are grateful to all of them for their time and effort and their willingness to share their experiences openly with us. We also benefited from the feedback of colleagues in the academic, justice and not-for-profit sectors, and appreciate their time and engagement. We have not attempted to represent the diversity of opinions we heard in this paper. Its views and analysis are our own and we are responsible for any errors or omissions. Finally, we are grateful to a number of students at the University of Ottawa Faculty of Law who provided research assistance..."