Nikki Gershbain is the National Director of Pro Bono Students Canada.
Nikki Gershbain, National Director of Pro Bono Students Canada (PBSC), has been awarded a Community Leadership in Justice Fellowship by the Law Foundation of Ontario. Ms. Gershbain will be partnering with Dr. Julie Macfarlane, Distinguished University Professor and director of the National Self-Represented Litigants Project (NSRLP) at Windsor Law.
Ms. Gershbain has extensive experience developing and overseeing programs that use law students to provide legal services without charge to people in need. As part of her Fellowship, she will research and develop teaching tools for a new model of legal service delivery called legal ‘coaching’. She will work with legal institutions to refine and promote the coaching model as part of the profession’s response to the increase in self-represented litigants, which could have far-reaching consequences for how a new generation of lawyers interact with clients and approach the practice of law, including family law.
The NSRLP emerged out of a ground-breaking research study conducted by Dr. Macfarlane, partially funded by The Law Foundation of Ontario, that documented the experiences of self-represented litigants in Canada. The Justice Fellowship and another separate LFO grant will allow Ms. Gershbain to split her time between the fellowship projects, and developing a fundraising strategy to put NSRLP on a more financially sustainable footing.
