The last two decades have witnessed a delayed but growing awareness of the importance of access to justice. The change was led by courts and public interest lawyers, who identified obstacles blocking access for indigent people. To explain this delayed development, the chapter identifies the tension between the private legal sector who dominate the Israeli Bar and the public interest lawyer sector. Despite pressure from other stakeholders, the Israeli Bar has retained a self-regulatory scheme which primarily serves its professional and financial goals. Another major reason for late development is the lack of a statutory guarantee of the right of access to justice. Israel is a western democracy with no constitution but with a set of Basic Laws guaranteeing some rights, which do not include the right of access to justice; the right to access to justice was declared to be a constitutional right by the Supreme Court only in 2003. The chapter argues that access to justice in Israel is supported by courts and various schemes but has suffered in the lawyer dominant environment, and that serious access to justice reform will require a different balance of power among access participants.