Civic Impact

Seven justice-based nonprofits 'flip their wigs' over justice system accessibility

Katia Snukal | Wednesday, March 12, 2014

There are angry people at the helm of Ontario's largest access-to-justice nonprofits. This past Thursday, they asked the justice community to help them spread their message: Canada has an access to justice crisis - the legal process is often confusing, costly and overwhelming, and few people have the resources to navigate the system unscathed.

That's why, says Sarah McCoubrey, executive director of the Ontario Justice Education Network, she and her colleagues asked lawyers and law professional to show up to work last Thursday wearing a funny wig.

Those who took on the challenge were participating in the inaugural day of action for the new Flip Your Wig for justice campaign, an initiative launched by seven Ontario access-to-justice nonprofits.

The campaign, as the Flip Your Wig site reads, "plays on the combination of the traditional judicial wig, and the turn of phrase, 'flip your wig' - implying to be angry and outraged."

"Those of us who work in the accessible justice sector started looking for ways to collaborate," says McCoubrey. "We realized that we all see only one piece of the puzzle--some of us provide free legal advice, others expose rights violations, or disseminate legal information or help the wrongfully convicted--but when we came together as a community we saw the extent of the access-to-justice problem."

As examples of this problem, McCoubrey points to evidence of ever growing legal fees, a dearth of knowledge by most Canadians about the legal system, and the almost 40 per cent of people with one or more legal problem that report having other social or health related problems as a direct result of their legal troubles.

As the Flip Your Wig site points out, "nearly 12 million Canadians will experience at least one legal problem in a given three year period" yet "over 20 per cent of the population take no meaningful action with respect to their legal problems, and over 65 per cent think that nothing can be done, are uncertain about their rights, do not know what to do, think it will take too much time, cost too much money, or are too afraid."

"While the access-to-justice community is an optimistic community we're also one that needs a lot of support and help because there's a real lack awareness about the justice system and about what we do," says McCoubrey. "So we launched Flip Your Wig as a pledge campaign and a way to engage people in these concerns and to engage the larger justice community."

The justice community has responded to Flip Your Wigs’ call. Law firms encouraged their lawyers to wear wigs and accumulate pledges (which the firms then matched) and law students and high school students across the province got in on the action too - holding wig making fundraisers or collecting pledges to have their dean don a funny wig for the day. All the funds raised will go to supporting the seven nonprofits behind the campaign.

McCoubrey is confident that this early momentum will carry on into future years. "We'd like Flip Your Wig to be an annual event on the calendars of legal professionals and law schools." But it's not just the particulars of campaign that’s important, she adds, it's also the fact that these seven nonprofits have come together to see themselves as one sector.

"I think the collaboration between organizations is really a big deal. In the nonprofit world where people tend to compete for funds, the fact that the seven of us are coming together, as being part of the same accessibility-to-justice project helps us spread this message of awareness and that we do need help from the justice community.

"Most people don't actually think about legal issues until they're in a crises, which is not the best time to learn about anything new...Waiting to get to the courthouse to understand the legal system is like waiting until you're in the operating rooms to understand your condition - of course it's scary and overwhelming. But there's the legal equivalent of pharmacists and walk-in clinics that can help you understand your problem and your options. But the people that can provide those resources aren't well-known and aren't well enough funded.

"We don't pretend that what we do as organizations or this campaign is the complete answer to such a complicated problem like access to justice,” continues McCoubrey. “But we do think that this is at a crisis level and we need to start working together as a justice community. And this campaign was a fun one-day way to act on that."

The organizations behind Flip Your Wig: Association in the Defense of the Wrongly Convicted (AIDWYC), Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA), Community Legal Education Ontario (CLEO), The Metropolitan Action Committee on Violence Against Women and Children (METRAC), Ontario Justice Education Network (OJEN), Pro Bono Law Ontario (PBLO), Pro Bono Students Canada (PBSC).

Writer: Katia Snukal
Source: Sarah McCoubrey, Executive Director, Ontario Justice Education Network

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Seven justice-based nonprofits 'flip their wigs' over justice system accessibility

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