Justice David Price of Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice conversed by email with Maclean’s national correspondent Charlie Gillis about the growing phenomenon of self-representation in court, and how the justice system is responding. Justice Price noted that his views are based on his personal experiences as a judge in civil and family proceedings, and that he was not speaking on behalf of the court.

Q: How prevalent in your experience is self-representation?

A: The docket sheets indicate that at least one of the litigants was self-represented in 40 per cent of the family conferences, and in half of family law and civil motions. To estimate the prevalence of self-represented litigants in the courts where I preside, I have reviewed my daily docket sheets for a representative 30 day period last year. The work that I did during that period consisted mainly of conferences in family law cases, pre-trial conferences in civil cases, and motions in family law and civil cases.  None of the pre-trial conferences in civil cases involved self-represented litigants.

Continue…