Retiring legal aid director reflects on career and justice system
Merv Shaw had just become a lawyer when he opened the first legal aid office in Moose Jaw, offering legal services to people with modest or no means.
In June he retired as local director after 43 years, working countless criminal files and establishing a reputation as a topnotch defence lawyer.
Some police officers have said they prefer not to be cross-examined by Shaw because he is so well prepared. Shaw’s career was capped earlier this year with the Law Society’s Willy Hodgson Award, an award in memory of the Moose Jaw Cree woman and her work on community and legal services for Indigenous people.
“I don’t recognize the guy they’re talking about on the award,” jokes Shaw. “I am humbled” and proud of the recognition by his peers for tireless work.
His appointment as Queen’s Counsel 10 years ago is another peer recognition.
He has seen people from the entire social spectrum in his office — children of MLAs, of engineers, of doctors, of people from good families.
“When I started 43 years ago, the issue was alcoholism. The issue now is really drugs and addiction to drugs.” Drugs were hardly mentioned back then. If they were “it was marijuana.” Since then, meth, cocaine and crystal meth have taken over the drug scene.
“Crystal meth is just tearing a strip through all socio-economic groups. It doesn’t care about the status of the individual.”
The legal system “is just opening a door for them (addicts) to go through. We’re not really dealing with the problem.” Places like the Wakamow Manor detox centre make a big difference in turning addicts’ lives around.
Drug addicted clients have prostituted themselves, stolen, died of overdoses.
Some people still wonder why taxpayers should fund legal aid.
Without legal representation “you’ve got one person against all of the state’s resources, and that’s the accused. The state has all the resources.
“The law believes there must be something of an equal footing, so the accused can bring some resources to their defence,” he said.
Shaw reminds that police charges don’t mean the accused is guilty of that offence “but quite often, the offence that is committed is not the one that was alleged.”
He cites home invasion charges that were settled as theft, murder files that were settled with no charges, as manslaughter or assault.
“Good police work makes my job as defence counsel much easier” by providing proper evidence to help the accused evaluate options.
“The police work is good but sometimes the witnesses are wrong. They have an axe to grind or a particular point of view. At trial you get to test the witnesses under oath.” Comparing and questioning the witnesses’ versions and the accused’s version of facts can suddenly turn “a slam dunk into no longer a slam dunk.”
Arguing a legal aid case successfully to the Supreme Court of Canada was a career highlight but the Irish-born lawyer is proudest of the cases where he made a difference in someone’s life.
Shaw negotiated a guilty plea in the high-profile Peter Whitmore child abduction case near Whitewood. “In these cases, you make a real difference. It makes an incredible difference to the community.”
The legal aid office used to provide a full spectrum of services until about 1983 when budget pressures restricted services to criminal and family law.
“Family law has exploded. Probably half of our clients are family law.
The big thing in family law is people don’t stay together as much as they used to” resulting in access and custody applications.
“Some of it is social services, where a child is taken by the state and we represent one or both of the parents to try to come to some agreement with the province to have the child returned to the parents.”
Social media complicates family law. Where family law once involved affidavits, reams of social media files are used as evidence of the parents’ perspective.
Shaw praises the legal aid staff in Moose Jaw – criminal lawyer Suzanne Jeanson, family lawyer Phil Ventzek, para-legal Gladys Johnston, and assistants Dana Koch and Lori Froehlich.
He has kept five murder files to handle and later this year may enter private criminal practice.
Ron Walter can be reached at ronjoy@sasktel.net