Law Times

November 1, 2010

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Law Times • November 1, 2010 NEWS PAGE 3 Course addresses shortage of child protection lawyers W BY MICHAEL McKIERNAN Law Times hen Victoria Starr did her fi rst child protection case nearly 15 years ago, it was as if she had been thrown in at the deep end without a lifeguard. "You don't know what you're doing the fi rst time you go into a fi le," she says. "But that's histori- cally how we learned child protec- tion law, totally by trial and error. You hit the ground running." Since then, the family law practitioner who runs Starr Fam- ily Law in Toronto can count just three best practices sessions put on by the Law Society of Upper Canada that touched on child protection issues. But for four days between Oct. 20 and 23, Starr, along with a good chunk of the province's child protection bar, was involved in an intensive child protection training pro- gram for young lawyers. More than 50 young lawyers attended the training. For Zehra Daudi, an associ- ate at Starr's fi rm, the course certainly lived up to its prom- ise. "It was quite intense," she says. "Everyone was exhausted after four days because there was so much packed in. Th ere was quite a lot of learning and a lot to take in, and every day you went home feeling as though you'd run a marathon." Starr was a facilitator for one of the groups but con- cedes she, too, learned plenty from the course. "It's nice to see that everybody else is using the tactics that you are using," she says. "Even for many of the senior lawyers, it's the fi rst time that we've seen comprehensive child protection law training. Th ere's so few programs and nothing like this." Almost two years in the mak- ing, the program was devised by the Ontario Association of Fam- ily and Conciliation Courts, a collection of judges, lawyers, mental-health professionals, social workers, and other play- ers in the family justice sys- tem. Chief Justice Annemarie Bonkalo of the Ontario Court of Justice hailed the eff ort to get the course off the ground at the Opening of the Courts ceremo- ny in September, something she said was desperately needed to respond to the "growing short- age in Ontario of child protec- tion lawyers." "Members of the bar re- sponded enthusiastically to this initiative, and I thank them for assistance in development of the program," she said. Charlotte Murray, a Toronto lawyer who prepared the course materials, paid tribute to the se- nior lawyers who took four full days out of their practices, as well as the guest speakers who gave their time to the cause. "It was a huge contribution from everybody involved and it was all done pro bono," Murray says. At the same time, Daudi says that bringing together so many disparate players to one place gave the participants insights they might not get in practice. "It was an introduction to the support programs that are avail- able in the community, some of which we weren't even aware ex- isted. Th e thing that came across is that everyone who was there had a real passion in the area." In her short career, Daudi has had little chance to inter- act with Children's Aid Society lawyers, but the training gave her some exposure to their side of the cases. "It was really inter- esting because they told us how they run their case, what they're looking for, what we should do when we've got a case where a child has been apprehended, and the best way to utilize CAS lawyers for our cases," she says. "It was really interesting to get the other perspective." According to Daudi, none of her family law courses at law school touched on child protec- tion. In her view, a lack of famil- iarity may be part of the reason the area has attracted so few young practitio- ners. Still, she says, it's a very rewarding type of practice. "You've got the state system with all its resources behind it. Th en you've got the par- ents who are very often low income with low education who don't really know what to do or how to act. Parents need the counsel, and you're really the only supportive resource the parent has at times." Still, Daudi feels lucky to have Starr as a mentor, but many oth- er lawyers at the course were sole practitioners without a senior fi g- ure easily available for guidance. Starr hopes the course changed that. "If you're at all shy, you don't know who to call and you're not sure if anyone will spare you any of their time," Starr says. "Here, they made friends with each other; they made friends with the mentors; and they made friends with the judges. I think that's very important." Murray notes young law- hours. "It's hard to run a practice if you're dealing primarily with child protection cases unless you're very, very effi cient and eff ective," she says. "But this course really helps you become much more ef- fective." According to Mur- In the past, lawyers learned child protection law by trial and error, says Victoria Starr. northwest region of the province has only about 12 lawyers, Mur- ray estimates. She suspects many young law- yers travelled from all over the province, including from places where the shortage of practitio- ners is even more acute than in the Greater Toronto Area. Partic- ipants also had their names add- ed to Legal Aid Ontario's child protection panel. While there are about 200 people already on that list in Toronto, the entire yers stay away from child protec- tion law because they're daunted by the prospect. "It's a scary area to go into because the conse- quences are so serious for the people involved," Murray says. Daudi, meanwhile, notes the large volume of legal aid cases also puts many off because they tend to be less lucrative and can easily have lawyers work- ing well beyond their allotted ray, the small number of lawyers practising child protection law has made it diffi cult for some people to get the experience they need to break into the area. She sees the training course as an attempt to break that vicious cycle by giving them the tools to get started and make the connections to help them on their way. Her 1,000-page CD of ma- terials is meant to assist with that goal. "It's in- tended in large part to be a manual for these people to use," she says. "It's the nuts and bolts of child protection law. I hope they make use of it." In fact, Daudi has already begun using the CD to create task lists to work through when she starts work on a case. "It's probably the most practical course I've ever taken," she says. "Th e materials are very to the point, very strategy- and tech- nique-based. 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