Canadian Lawyer

w w w . C A N A D I A N L a w y e r m a g . c o m M A R C H 2 0 1 7 45 amily law lawyers have access to an untapped mar- ket, and many of them aren't taking advantage of it. That's the argument being made by proponents of legal coaching, which Nikki Ger- shbain, national director at Pro Bono Students Canada, describes as a hybrid of unbundling and self-help. There's this large cohort of individu- als who have no intention of hiring a lawyer, Gershbain says, but by promot- ing unbundled services, "what we're talking about is an expansion of legal need not a narrowing" and savvy law- yers will offer this as a service knowing there is a market of people who "other- wise wouldn't bother doing it at all." "It's amazing how many people would do a good job of moving cases forward if they had support at key moments," she adds, noting legal aid thresholds — even with recent increases — are so low very few are eligible, and yet the cost of legal services continues to increase, becoming increasingly out of reach for ordinary Canadians. Gershbain was awarded a Communi- ty Leadership in Justice Fellowship from the Law Foundation of Ontario last June. She is taking a one-year leave from PBSC to partner with Julie Macfarlane, a law professor at Windsor University, on her National Self-Represented Litigants Project. The project was born from Macfarlane's research over the past few years where she studied more than 200 self-represented litigants. Macfarlane says she focused on family law — the "heart of legal ser- vices" — in her work as that's the place where ordinary citizens are most likely to come into contact with the legal system. Gershbain will be developing curric- ulum and training materials to be used for professional development work with lawyers to encourage them to incorpo- rate unbundling into their practices. "The suggestion here is not that unbundling or coaching is a panacea," she says. "I think we would all agree in the profession that full representation is the gold standard. But the reality is that is no longer realistic. The goal is for every person who needs a lawyer to L E G A L R E P O RT \ FA M I LY L AW JEANNIE PHAN Proponents of unbundling family law services say it can help access to justice and tap into a new market By Mallory Hendry Unbundling for the underserved family law client F

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