From Shock to Determination: How Working for NSRLP has Affected Me

This week’s guest blog is written by NSRLP Project Coordinator Dayna Cornwall. 

Dayna Cornwall

In October of 2016, Julie hired me to be the NSRLP’s new Project Coordinator. I was thrilled to start my new job, and honoured to be tasked with the management of this plucky, grassroots non-profit. I knew I could keep the organization humming, was eager to share my ideas for growth, and could tell that Julie would be a fantastic boss. But I was a complete virgin in terms of all things legal: my educational and professional background is in libraries and education, I’ve never been involved in a legal proceeding, and my familiarity with legal documents extended to scrolling through the iTunes user agreement.

A year and a half later, I’m still thrilled and honoured to assist Julie in the management of the NSRLP. I’ve developed personally and professionally in ways I couldn’t have imagined, I’ve learned a lot about the law, and I’m excited every single day by the work we’re doing, and the plans we’re making for the future. This is, without question, the best job I’ve ever had.

But I still have yet to recover from the shock of coming face to face with our justice system.

Until I started with the NSRLP, I had had no real exposure to the legal world. I’m a reasonably intelligent person, university-educated, and pretty engaged in current events and social justice issues. But my perceptions of the justice system were based on media representations, and vague memories of Grade 9 civics lessons – and I imagine that my perceptions were pretty similar to the majority of Canadians. So, when I first read Julie’s 2013 study on Canadian SRLs, I was completely taken aback by the findings.

It had never occurred to me that I might ever have trouble accessing the justice system if I needed it. I knew that legal fees were probably largely beyond my means, but I thought that’s why legal aid existed. My vague picture of the average self-represented litigant was of an arrogant, deranged criminal defendant, someone egotistically convinced that they could do it better than a lawyer, and possibly trying to push some horrible social agenda: someone like Dylann Roof.

Reading Julie’s research opened my eyes to a realistic picture of the SRL phenomenon:

• Self-representation has risen sharply in Canada over the last ten years;
• In some locations almost 80% of family litigants are self-represented, and the national average is 50%;
• People in all income brackets, and at all education levels, self-represent;
• In civil and family cases, little-to-no legal aid is available;
• Many SRLs are self-representing reluctantly, and are desperate for help;
• The number one reason people self-represent is because they cannot afford, or continue to afford, a lawyer.

I was also taken aback at my own ignorance of just how complex, time-consuming, and impenetrable the justice system is. The reality is that ordinary citizens, even when they’re intelligent and educated, find themselves drowning when they try to take it on alone.

Since starting at NSRLP, whenever I talk to friends or family about my job, they all, to a person, have the same reactions I did: “How have I never heard about this huge issue before?! And given the cost of typical legal services, and my regular-person budget, where would I go for help if I were to find myself with an expensive legal problem?”

Naturally, I’ve done a lot of reflecting on the SRL phenomenon over the last year and a half, and I often find myself thinking about it through the lens of my professional background. The teacher in me thinks that, as with so many important issues, a major part of addressing the Access to Justice crisis is public education. If most Canadians have no clue what the reality is (unless their lives happen to crash against it), they will assume, as I did, that our justice system more-or-less works, that there are ample resources for those who can’t afford a lawyer on their own, and that they will be treated fairly. The librarian in me thinks that another major key here is access to information, which is truly the fundamental access that SRLs lack. They need access to procedural information, to factual information (i.e. case law and legal strategies), and information about how to navigate the legal culture.

All this reflection has now led to a new NSRLP endeavour that I am deeply excited about: our pilot project with local public libraries, launching this month. After talking with Julie a lot, since the beginning of my time with NSRLP, about what I saw as the great potential of public libraries to serve SRLs, we ended up writing a proposal for the Law Foundation of Ontario’s (LFO) Family Law Access to Justice Fund based on the premise that with a little staff training, some client-specific user-friendly resource development, and a bit of promotion, public libraries could become a big force in the struggle to improve Access to Justice.

I know from my time working at the Windsor Public Library that some SRLs come to the library for information and resources – I didn’t necessarily understand at the time that these patrons were SRLs, but I certainly saw plenty of people looking for legal information, or using the library’s resources (computers, photocopiers, workspace) while preparing their cases. Librarians are a passionate bunch of access to information advocates who do their absolute best to help people find what they’re looking for, but most librarians (like most Canadians) don’t have a good understanding of the SRL phenomenon, or the Access to Justice crisis, and they are, of course, nervous about the accuracy of legal information they provide, and careful to remember that they are information specialists, not lawyers. Still, I know from experience that a good librarian will use their superior search skills to try to provide helpful answers to whatever query is put to them. Public libraries are clearly already providing at least some help to SRLs. Julie and I argued to the LFO that a little time and money could unlock the major potential of the public library to make a much bigger difference to many more SRLs. And the LFO agreed with us!

So, for three days a week for the next two years, I’ll be leading a pilot project – Family Law at the Library – with the Windsor Public Library, and the Essex County Public Library. We will provide training on the SRL phenomenon to library staff. I will be working with my librarian colleagues to develop our own client-specific resources, as well as connect to those developed by others. We will be offering educational programming for family SRLs coming to the library. We’re also looking at creating library spaces that can be set aside for SRL use. And we will be promoting the library to the public as a safe space and a hub of useful resources for SRLs.  We hope to help family SRLs in Windsor and Essex County, of course, but our ultimate goal is to develop a program that can be replicated at other public libraries across the country.

I’ve had a major legal education over the last year and a half, but the realities of how our justice system impacts the lives of “ordinary Canadians” still shock me every day. That shock has become a very strong motivator, pushing me to find ways I can move the needle on Access to Justice with my own particular skill set. Talking with SRLs, hearing their stories, and learning about the ways the system has reacted to self-representation make it very easy to feel passionate about improving Access to Justice. (Not to mention, Julie’s passion and determination have a way of rubbing off on the people who work with and for her!) So, embarking on this new project feels like the perfect way to move forward in my work with the NSRLP. It’s combining my particular passions, old and new, in a way I never could have imagined two years ago.

Thank you to the Law Foundation of Ontario for funding our new project – we are extremely grateful!

And thank you Julie, for hiring me in the first place, for listening to my ideas, for challenging me to take this on, for mentoring me through the application process, and for all the work I know you’re going to put in to help me make this project a success. Turns out you really are a fantastic boss.

Stay tuned for more on Family Law at the Library!