Shayne Robinson articled under Tony Prkacin at PGS Law in 2010 and immediately loved working within legal aid. In particular, he found it rewarding to help parents reunite with their children and to advocate for people who otherwise would not have been able to afford a lawyer. He soon realized that as a junior lawyer, there was no better path to gaining real court experience than by working with Legal Aid BC.
Shayne remembers Tony telling him when he was first starting, “we aren’t always going to be with the clients until the very end of their cases, so we have to make as much of a difference as we can during the time that we have.”
In 2017, When an opportunity arose to be Duty Counsel in Fort St. John and Dawson Creek, Shayne applied, despite having never visited either community. He wanted to see more of the province and help in places that faced real shortages of family lawyers. After visiting the North Peace region, Shayne fell in love with the area and has been acting as Duty Counsel in both cities ever since.
“Duty Counsel is a great way to provide tangible help to people, but also to assist the court with streamlining applications and narrowing down the issues, says Shayne. “Judges will often call you into the court and ask you to look at an application and help the client specify what relief they are actually looking for.”
Shayne’s favorite part of being Duty Counsel is the opportunity to help all kinds of people with all kinds of problems. “Sometimes you’ll have a client who just stepped into a courthouse for the first time, and other days you’ll be helping a client who has been involved in litigation for decades and has a very sophisticated understanding of the law,” he says.
These days he also acts as Duty Counsel in New Westminster and Port Coquitlam and occasionally in other cities like Nelson, Smithers, Williams Lake, Terrace, Sechelt, and 100 Mile House.
Shayne strongly believes that Duty Counsel is an important part of the court process and hopes to continue being a part of it for many years to come.
