Family breakdown and the justice system: scale, stakes and self-representation

Separation and divorce are among the most common legal events in an ordinary life. Most people will never be charged with a crime or sued over a contract, but a very large share of adults will, at some point, deal with the end of a relationship, the division of a household, or questions about who cares for the children. Because these events are so widespread, family matters make up a substantial part of what courts handle every day.

That volume shows up clearly in the research on people who go to court without a lawyer. Family disputes are the single largest source of self-represented litigants. In the National Self-Represented Litigants Project study led by Julie Macfarlane, about 60 percent of self-represented litigants were dealing with family matters. In other words, when people stand in front of a judge on their own, more often than not the subject is their family.

This concentration matters for how we think about access to justice. If most self-represented people are in family court, then the everyday experience of the justice system for ordinary Canadians is, to a large degree, the experience of the family system. Improving how that system communicates, what forms it uses, and how it guides people without lawyers has an outsized effect on the public's overall experience of justice.

Family cases carry a kind of weight that other disputes usually do not. They touch on relationships, children, the family home, and a person's sense of fairness about a chapter of life that is ending. Emotions run high, and decisions that look procedural on paper can feel deeply personal. That emotional load makes it harder to think clearly, to negotiate, and to absorb legal information at the very moment a person most needs to.

There is also a feature of family disputes that sets them apart: the parties often cannot simply walk away from each other. When children are involved, two people who are separating may need to keep communicating and making joint decisions for years to come. Unlike a one-time disagreement between strangers, the relationship continues, which raises the stakes of how the dispute is handled and how much lasting conflict it creates.

On top of all this, a separation usually strains money at exactly the wrong time. Splitting one household into two tends to reduce the income and resources available to each person, and it does so just when legal help, new housing, and other costs are most pressing. The result is that many people face the most consequential legal process of their lives with less money, more stress, and an ongoing relationship to protect.

Given the cost of lawyers and the financial pressure of a separation, it is no surprise that many people handle family matters on their own. Self-representation in family court is not a rare exception; for a great many people it is simply how the process happens. They fill out the forms, gather their documents, and speak for themselves because hiring a lawyer for the whole matter is out of reach.

Research has documented what this experience is actually like. The Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System (IAALS) Cases Without Counsel study, focused on family courts in the United States, looked closely at people navigating family disputes without lawyers. While it studied a different system, its findings echo what is seen elsewhere: self-representation places a heavy practical and emotional load on people, who must learn procedure, manage paperwork, and advocate for themselves all while coping with the personal stress of the situation.

Understanding this reality is the starting point for any honest conversation about access to justice in family law. The question is not whether people should represent themselves; many already do and will continue to. The question is how to make the system clearer and more manageable for them, so that going without a lawyer does not mean going without a fair chance to be heard.

This is research and educational material on family breakdown and access to justice. It is general legal information, not legal advice, and it does not describe any individual's matter.