Justice navigators are non-lawyer professionals working in community agencies that support their clients’ engagement with the legal system. Their work is varied, and their impact is great.
Community justice helper. Service provider. Intermediary. Intake worker. Court support worker. Settlement worker. Case manager. Public librarian. Tenant advocate. Intake worker. Family law services coordinator. Law librarian. Social worker.
What do these job titles have in common? They’re all titles used to describe non-lawyer professionals who work at community agencies and support clients who may have legal issues. Supporting clients might be their main job or just part of their job. We call these folks justice navigators.
Who are justice navigators
“People often turn to local not-for-profit organizations they know and trust for help to access income or employment support, to find housing or remain in their home, to work and live in Canada, and for other assistance.” Julie Mathews makes this statement in her 2024 report to the Government of Canada entitled “Community Justice Help Across Canada: A Snapshot of Programs”.
When something goes wrong, many people don’t turn to a lawyer, they turn to someone they trust. If they’re new to Canada, that may be the settlement worker who’s helping them transition to their new home. If they’re low income and need housing, that may be a social worker with a community housing program.
The reality is that many social issues touch on the law in some way. Life and the law are tangled together in a complicated web. These trusted professionals untangle the web, providing information to help their clients deal with the issues and referring them to more specialized help, as needed.
The term ‘justice navigator’ has gained traction in recent years to describe a broad range of these non-lawyer professionals working in community agencies who support their clients with various issues, including legal ones. While the term may be new, the work of these professionals is not.
A day in the life
In the Report, Mathews lists examples of services that justice navigators provide, including:
- information about rights and resources, and referrals
- support for navigating systems and processes
- counselling and/or advocacy
- support to complete forms and documents
- support to understand the court process and prepare for court
- accompany people to court or to legal appointments
- liaise with other community, government or legal services
Some justice navigators have in-depth knowledge about a particular legal issue. Others have more surface level knowledge about a range of legal issues.
While the work of justice navigators varies, one common thread is that they cannot provide legal advice, only legal information. In Canada, only licensed lawyers (and paralegals in Ontario) can provide legal advice. The line between advice and information is murky at best but it’s an important distinction to understand. Wading into legal advice territory may lead to a justice navigator worsening their client’s situation, perhaps irreversibly so.
Equipping the helpers
Since its beginnings in 1975, the Centre for Public Legal Education Alberta (CPLEA) has been training justice navigators about the law and legal processes. Justice navigators help many people every day through their work. Training them allows CPLEA to exponentially advance its mission of helping people understand their rights and obligations under the law.
With the ongoing support of the Alberta Law Foundation, CPLEA is excited to take its work in this area to the next level by developing a new Justice Navigator Training program. The goals of the program are twofold:
- Equip justice navigators with a base level of knowledge about the law and legal processes through a series of online, self-directed learning modules, and
- Create a community of practice to provide opportunities to dig deeper into various topics, through webinars and peer-to-peer sharing.
Over the years, CPLEA’s training for justice navigators has traditionally been in-person or via live webinar. We’ve heard from busy justice navigators that live delivery often makes it challenging for them to attend, either based on schedules or travel. For this reason, our new program will offer self-directed online learning. Participants can complete modules at their own pace and on their own schedules.
We anticipate launching the program in the spring of 2026. Learn more about the program on our website. And we invite justice navigators to complete our development survey to help us create a program that addresses your needs.
The newcomer sector
The newcomer sector is also bubbling with activity to equip justice navigators.
In its 2024 report entitled “Legal Needs of Newcomers in Alberta”, the Alberta Law Foundation identified several barriers to accessing justice, as well as gaps in legal services, for newcomers. The report highlights the intersection of social and legal issues: “Many legal challenges faced by newcomers – such as housing instability, domestic violence, or workplace exploitation – are rooted in broader social inequities. These issues often require simultaneous social and legal interventions to ensure sustainable solutions.”
The report notes that justice navigators “serve as essential intermediaries, providing guidance, support, and referrals while addressing barriers such as language, cultural differences, and systemic inequities.” The report recommends establishing a Newcomer Legal Support Fund to fund justice navigators within the newcomers sector.
To that end, the Alberta Association of Immigrant Serving Agencies (AAISA) is developing a framework for justice navigators within settlement agencies. Andrew Lam, Policy Specialist at AAISA, shares that the goal of the program is to “build a robust, community-informed framework that enables the implementation of Justice Navigator roles within Alberta’s newcomer sector, improving equitable access to legal support by bridging systemic gaps between settlement and legal systems.” While many workers in this sector are already providing justice navigation services, this project will equip justice navigators with a foundation to better support newcomers.
Improving access to justice
With funding from the Alberta Law Foundation, CPLEA is excited to develop its training program in collaboration with AAISA and other justice navigators from across the province. We’re also excited to support AAISA as they develop a justice navigator framework for newcomers. Equipping these quiet helpers in the legal system to better support their clients can only lead to better access to and quality of justice for Albertans.
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DISCLAIMER The information in this article was correct at time of publishing. The law may have changed since then. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of LawNow or the Centre for Public Legal Education Alberta.
About Jessica Steingard
