A Survey of Beliefs and Priorities About Access to Justice of Family Law: The Search for A Multidisciplinary Perspective*

Abstract

Within the last decade, the term “access to justice” has grown in popularity among legal commentators, scholars, family justice reformers, government policy makers, and the media. But with all of this new attention, there remains no common understanding or definition of access to justice and its potential implications for children and families in domestic relation courts. The purpose of this cross‐sectional online survey was to explore the meaning of access to justice according to legal, mental health, and dispute resolution professionals in various countries. The sample included 442 respondents (e.g., judges, lawyers, custody evaluators, mediators, family court services, court administrators, parent educators, etc.) from seven countries. Of the total respondents, 398 participants completed the survey (response rate of ninety percent). The majority of participants defined access to justice as the ability of disputants to seek and obtain a remedy through formal (e.g., the courts) or informal (e.g., mediation) institutions and services for resolving disputes. Noteworthy differences were reported, however, between the views of legal and mental health professionals, where the latter most likely viewed access to justice as a legal issue, while the former focused on alternative approaches outside of the legal system to resolve family disputes. Implications for family court reforms are discussed.