It was part children's theatre, part museum, part legal education day and part academic competition at the Edmonton Law Courts last Saturday.
And St. Albert lawyer Farrel Shadlyn was, just like he was for the past 25 years, right in the middle of the show.
The big draws to Law Day are the trials for children, which are essentially plays where famous characters settle their disputes in a courtroom instead of a storybook.
This year, for example, the trial was Cinderella vs. Lady Tremaine et al., about how Cinderella’s stepmother and stepsisters forged her father’s will to get all his money and made her work for free.
“It’s almost like a children’s play in a courtroom, with some basic legal principles,” Shadlyn explained.
There was also a criminal trial against Darth Vader, accused of using the force for evil. And he was a busy man that day, also appearing in a civil trial with his two children Luke and Leia who were seeking child-support payments.
“Obligation to support them he has, but take responsibility he does not,” the children’s lawyer Master Yoda observed during the trial.
Shadlyn explained it’s important for children to have exposure to the legal system in a way that’s less intimidating than if they had to come under other circumstances. Typically, it’s best to keep kids out of the courtroom.
“I do a lot of work in the government representing kids,” he said. “We try to never have children come to court, because usually court is boring. It takes a lot of time and you hear all sorts of unfortunate, terrible things.”
This way, kids get their questions answered without it being a scary experience.
Shadlyn said when he first started volunteering with Law Day in Edmonton, it was as an actor playing one of the roles in these trials. For example, he got to portray one of the seven dwarves in one play, and a social worker in another.
A large part of Law Day is also the high-school mock trials, which Shadlyn has been involved with for many years.
“That interested me, because as a lawyer we were asked to be judges,” he said, noting his suggestions about how things could be run more smoothly landed him in an organizer role.
These mock trials have the same ultimate goal as the children’s trials – to get young people interested in the legal process.
“I’m always amazed how talented they are,” he said.
Shadlyn said he sometimes even sees first-hand how experience at Law Day can help lead someone to a legal career many years later.
There was also one of the courtrooms set up as something of a museum, letting people take a look at some of the old equipment used by police and the courts, and the cells in the courthouse basement were also opened up for tours.
