It has been clear for a long time that self-represented litigants struggle to understand the system they are often thrown into. By contrast, lawyers study for years, and have the benefit of ever-mounting daily experience, topped off with the privilege and deference associated with belonging to the legal profession. It’s no wonder then that SRLs tend to muddle blindly through the system, piecing together whatever information they can find from a host of sources, some more reliable than others. Naturally they make mistakes, and are inefficient, contributing to the existing backlog and straining the legal system. These litigants are very aware of this, and it adds to their stress and embarrassment. It’s not pleasant to feel, based on your own experience and the reactions of others, that you are inadequately navigating an unforgiving system not built for your participation. As a consequence, SRLs often feel lost, isolated, and scared.
The National Self-Represented Litigants Project (NSRLP) has long worked to address SRLs’ challenges, in part by providing practical, plain-language resources to assist litigants to navigate the system more smoothly, when the option to hire legal representation is out of reach. Our library of “primers” has been an important and much-used resource since the early days of the organization (in the past year the primers have been viewed over 3600 times), but we always envisioned a more cohesive educational initiative, something that would give SRLs a big-picture “crash-course” in important elements of the legal system, putting them on firmer footing to understand where they are in the system and how it operates, and equipping them with practical strategies for navigating it.
In 2022 we were able to realize this goal thanks to funding from the federal Department of Justice that allowed us to create a pilot project, the “School for Family Litigants.” The pilot version encompassed two separate runs of a 12-week program, where SRLs from across Canada attended weekly virtual sessions taking them through a syllabus that included the structure and basics of family law, as well as best practices and strategies for navigating the system while self-represented. Each week consisted of a lecture by a legal professional followed by a live question and answer session with the lecturer and 2-3 other experts (our lecturers and panelists were lawyers, judges, academics, law librarians, mediators, paralegals, former SRLs, etc., all of whom generously donated their time to this project). The participants were also encouraged to connect with each other via a private Facebook group, where they could share experiences, questions, tips, and resources with each other. The pilot program was incredibly successful, with both sessions filling up almost immediately, and effusively positive feedback via messages and NSRLP surveys. (To learn more about the pilot program see this previous Slaw column.)
Unfortunately, the pilot iteration of the School was not sustainable or scalable given the limited staff and financial resources of the NSRLP; however the value was undeniable, and we were committed to finding a way to make the program permanent, and expandable. With a small top-up of funding from the DOJ, we re-worked the model into a proposed hybrid version, which would consist of recorded lectures (available thanks to the pilot program), regular (though not weekly) live Q&A sessions, a community forum, and various other collected resources.
We are pleased to say that as of late February, the revamped School for Family Litigants is now operational, and has already attracted over a hundred participants, with more signing up each day. We are in the early, growing stages of this initiative, but we are excited to learn and improve as we go, and hopeful that it will have a positive impact on the ability of Canadian SRLs to navigate the family justice system. We strongly believe in the combination of reliable legal information content that SRLs can access in their own time, with interactive Q&A sessions that allow participants to gained a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the legal information they access.
Another goal with this new iteration is to begin providing jurisdiction-specific content – this need became very obvious the longer the pilot program went on, as participants (from across the country) naturally had questions about the forms and processes in their specific provinces. To that end, NSRLP has been seeking funding in various jurisdictions, with the goal of creating complementary material to supplement the national content. We are very grateful to the Law Foundation of Saskatchewan for being our first provincial funding partner, and we look forward to starting to release Saskatchewan-specific materials in the School very soon. Following after will be both Prince Edward Island and Ontario content, thanks to their respective Law Foundations. The support of family law professionals is essential to this endeavor, as it relies on access to justice-oriented volunteers to help create content and serve on live session panels. We therefore encourage any professionals interested in helping with this project, particularly those in Saskatchewan, PEI, and Ontario, to reach out to us at representingyourself@gmail.com.
We are learning as we go with this initiative, but one demonstrable benefit is its flexibility and adaptability. New content can be added at any time, old content can be removed or adapted, participants can stay as long as they wish or come in and out, and the School is scalable to a very large capacity. We look forward to adding modules not only on jurisdictional content, but on content for special populations, such as those who have experienced family violence. We also see the School as a clearinghouse of other resources – working with provincial partners, we are seeking to share existing resources without duplicating them, while at the same time creating new content where gaps in legal information remain. Furthermore, it helps tackle issues of remote access to justice by virtue of its virtual setting. The School will grow along with our capacity, and discrete injections of funding will add to the long-term practicality and viability of the program.
The School for Family Litigants fills a crucial gap in resources for self-represented litigants; we hope it will become one of NSRLP’s primary initiatives, and we invite participation and collaboration from as many jurisdictions and stakeholders as possible.
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