Tracking the Trends of the Self-Represented Litigant Phenomenon: Data from the National Self-Represented Litigants Project, 2019-2021

The last report covering data collected by the National Self-Represented Litigants Project (NSRLP) (information shared by self-represented litigants between January 1, 2018 and June 30, 2019) was published in January 2020, a mere two months before courts across Canada were left scrambling to adapt to a new reality: the COVID-19 pandemic. Nearly eighteen months later—after thousands of virtual hearings, new protocols, and public health challenges that both improved and destabilized access to justice in myriad different ways—the NSRLP is bringing forward its findings collected from SRLs from July 1, 2019 to June 30, 2021, from a total of 279 respondent