Access to Legal Services: From Sisyphean Quest to a Sustainable Community

“The Access to Legal Services Boulder Was Never the Point”

BC Day 2025 Origins

Like many things Amici Curiae Friends of Court (AC) does, it starts with my waking up one morning and thinking to myself, hmmm, I think we could do better improving the services we provide British Columbians. BC Day 2025 was no different.

For many of us who are working in the access to justice ecosystem, solving these complex issues can feel Sisyphean. Sisyphus was a legendary king who was condemned by Zeus and the gods eternally for his cleverness, to repeatedly roll a heavy rock up a hill in Hades, only to have it roll down again as it neared the top. Like Sisyphus, we find ourselves continuously rolling the access to legal services boulder close to the top of the hill, only for the boulder to roll back to the bottom of the hill. It is such a humbling and frustrating experience.

Last year during the BC Day long weekend, I had an epiphany. Instead of designing a new service, what if we took a different approach? What if we had a conversation with community groups and various justice actors to understand what was happening on the ground in their own contexts, as they provided direct services to clients? It had been five and a half years since COVID struck, and I knew some services had not quite recovered their ability to help their clients. Over a cup of coffee, I reflected on the rise of anti-racist attacks experienced by members of the Pan-Asian community, myself included. After a few emails, AC decided to convene this conversation as a Community of Practice.

In early 2025, Amici Curiae published its Pan-Asian Justice Report, a community data-driven report that explores the challenges that Pan-Asian communities in Vancouver experience navigating BC’s legal system. The report interviewed service providers- non-profit community organizations that provide social services for predominantly East Asian populations in Vancouver’s Chinatown and the Downtown Eastside. The purpose of the report was to identify barriers that Asian communities face when navigating the legal system, which would inform areas where AC’s programming could respond to these gaps. Of the findings, one stood out: service providers wanted a network where they could connect with other service providers supporting clients in the Downtown Eastside. They wanted to be able to exchange information, learn about best practices and resources available to support referral pathways to strengthen community relationships and mitigate burnout.

AC sought out this opportunity to serve as a convenor, bringing together service providers, other access to justice supporters and senior judges to participate in an inaugural Community of Practice (CoP)

Last November 29, 2025, we convened our first Community of Practice. Those invited had an opportunity to:

• connect with like-minded community non-profits and service providers to learn what services they offer to support Pan Asian communities navigating BC’s legal system
• share best practices and resources
• identify gaps and propose solutions to existing barriers to access to legal services relevant to their local contexts
• share their experiences and needs with justice actors and decision-makers by broadening their understanding of their lived realities.

Here is the executive summary from the CoP.

BC Day 2026 Proof of progress

It has been a year since BC Day 2025. Despite the Sisyphean hurdles, there are reasons to be hopeful about the future. AC continues to be optimistic that by sustaining a community in Chinatown and the broader Downtown Eastside, we can make modest and meaningful headway.

Our community friends in Chinatown and the broader Downtown Eastside have established closer relations with each other as a result of attending our first Community of Practice.

This spring, AC has continued to sustain its community engagement priorities, checking in with service providers to learn more of what their needs on the ground are. It has been quite humbling to receive their very gracious offer to share their services to our clients. One client told us: “It is not much, we can offer you one to two beds for those who need transient accommodations.”

Designing at the speed of trust and as a result of the CoP, a legal referral pipeline to serve vulnerable temporary workers has been established in collaboration with the Immigration Refugee Legal Clinic and the Migrant Workers Centre. We anticipate it will be operational by 2027.

The presence of senior judges from the Provincial Court of BC at the CoP allowed them to hear first-hand about the justice gaps experienced by clients. The Court acted with surprising nimbleness.

Six months later, they invited AC on May 4, 2026 to open a Legal Information Centre just 100 steps from the Provincial Court of BC’s Robson court registry. AC is now preparing to open a second Legal Information Centre at another courthouse. For us, this is proof of what can happen when community knowledge reaches justice-sector decision-makers, and when those decision-makers are willing to respond.

Being optimistic about the future means collaborating with community organizations by finding ways to support their capacity to serve equity-deserving communities. It means continuing to listen, building relationships, sharing resources, and creating opportunities for community organizations and justice actors to learn from one another. This means that together, we will continue to look for ways to achieve synergies.

So you see, the access to legal services boulder was never the point.