Scanned, recopied or Internet copy, if there are errors, please e-mail me with corrections: Opening comments: More at the end. Toronto Star - Mar. 12, 2007 - By Tracey Tyler, LEGAL AFFAIRS REPORTER Price of Justice VANCOUVER–Terrified of losing custody of her children and in need of a good lawyer, Anne Singleton was stuck with an advocate who had never been to law school and had an irregular heartbeat induced by stress. That advocate was Singleton herself, a 46-year-old part-time high school teacher facing an aggressive lawyer representing her estranged husband. "I was feeling very powerless," said Singleton, who was in no condition for courtroom combat after the collapse of what she describes as an abusive marriage. "I was feeling ashamed and full of self-doubt. I was a mess." Six years of legal battle eventually wore Singleton down to the point of surrender and she agreed to set aside a restraining order against her husband and grant him joint custody of their two children. Her story is not uncommon. Singleton, who asked that her real name not be used, is one of an expanding legion of Canadians who try to navigate the justice system without lawyers. It's a severe problem in family courts, with legal aid for family cases reduced or abolished in many provinces. In Ontario, one out of every three people who apply for legal aid in family law cases gets turned down, most because they earn too much or because their problem isn't covered by legal aid. Over the past six years, the number of legal aid certificates issued in family law cases has decreased from 32,849 to 28,794, a 12 per cent drop. The situation is arguably worse in British Columbia. When the province's annual legal aid budget was slashed from $88 million to $56 million in 2002, funding was eliminated for most family law cases. Initially, Singleton qualified for legal aid, but she was later turned down. She was netting about $750 a month from her job and subletting rooms in her house to offset expenses. In Ontario, someone with gross earnings of little more than $1,000 a month might not qualify. "The B.C. family legal aid system has been totally decimated," said Rollie Thompson, a law professor at Dalhousie University, currently on sabbatical at the University of Toronto. But Thompson pointed out that family law problems are not the kind of cases people can give up on. "Issues of custody, restraining orders, child support – when people split up, those things have to be resolved. You can't just walk away from it." Family law litigants are invariably at a "crisis point" in their lives and having to represent themselves only adds to the emotional trauma, said Kelly Jordan, a Toronto lawyer and head of the family law division of the Ontario Bar Association. Standing nervously in front of a B.C. Supreme Court judge, Singleton found every aspect of the court process, including its terminology, overwhelming. "I couldn't even remember the word `adjournment.' I kept asking for a postponement," she said in an interview. "It was kind of obvious I didn't know what I was doing. The judge was kind to me." Singleton's husband was asking a court to remove a restraining order that prevented him from contacting her, a move she saw as the first step in gaining greater access, and eventually full custody, of their two school-aged children. Her brief trip to court convinced Singleton she could not represent herself in their legal dispute. She agreed to mediation instead, but the mediator ended the sessions after six months because Singleton and her husband couldn't reach consensus – perhaps not surprising given that a past attempt at mediation failed. "I felt like I was trapped in an endless cycle of mediation, waiting for a miracle, because I could not afford to take my case to court," she said. After the sessions ended, Singleton dreaded that her husband would take her back to court. One night, while her children were vacationing with their father, Singleton, desperate to avoid returning to court without a lawyer, ducked out the back door of her rented house to avoid a process server. For several nights, she stayed with friends. "I felt like some kind of fugitive," she said. It only delayed the inevitable. Singleton's husband renewed his bid to set aside the restraining order and also applied for joint custody. The "good" news was that by then Singleton had become eligible for legal aid because she had almost no money, having taken an unpaid leave from work because of the stress of trying to fight her case herself. The bad news was that her legal aid lawyer advised that if her case went to trial, her husband could get full custody – in part because of the toll the stress was taking. She ended up consenting to both his requests. A decision to give up the fight may seem surprising but it corresponds with the findings of a study done a decade ago by two University of Toronto professors attempting to gauge the early impact of legal aid cutbacks in Ontario. Carol Rogerson and Brenda Cossman found women who had been denied legal aid and left without legal representation settled or resolved their cases in ways that could be contrary to their best interests. Some agreed to settle for spousal support without seeing their husband's financial statements. Others walked away with agreements to joint custody – even though when they went to court, they had hoped to restrict their spouse's access to their children, out of concerns for physical safety. Two years ago, Singleton set out her experiences in an affidavit, prepared for a test case aiming to restore legal aid funding for family and civil cases in Canada. The Canadian Bar Association, which launched the case, asked the British Columbia Supreme Court to declare that the federal and B.C. governments are constitutionally obliged to provide legal aid for people disputing fundamental issues such as children, jobs or housing. But the case never got to trial. Last September, the two governments succeeded in having the case thrown out on a preliminary motion. Chief Justice Donald Brenner said that while legal aid for non-criminal cases is a serious public issue, the association had no grounds for launching a claim on behalf of the public at large, without an individual plaintiff. The bar association is appealing. Singleton hopes change is coming. The consequences of going to court without a lawyer can affect a family for years to come, she says. "It's not something that just winds up when the (court) docket is closed." Part of an ongoing series on the law. Home Page - Main Table of Contents - Back up a page - Back to Top [COMMENTS BY DON B. - ] |
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