The practice of family law in BCBritish Columbia is, from a lawyer's point of view, is very different today than it was just twenty years ago. As a young lawyer just starting out, I remember treating every new case that came in the door as if it was going to be resolved at trial. That was just the assumption we madethen. We didn't think about mediation or arbitration, and collaborative negotiation had yet to be introduced in the province. Parenting coordinators hadn’t coordination hadn't been introducedestablished, and unbundled legal services were just starting to be describeddiscussed.

Very few lawyers make the same assumption today. Most of us assess new cases for certain factors that might make litigation inevitable — including the presence of family violence, the need for orders protecting people or orders protecting property, and threats applications to move away with children — and our first inclination is often to pick up the phone and call the lawyer on the other side to talk about what's going on between our clients. We have more tools to settle cases these days than ever before, and the fact that less than 5% of family law court cases are resolved by trial seems to reflect the growth of these options.

The bigger problems, namely — the cost of legal services, the complexity of the legislationand case law, the complexity difficulty and adversarial nature of court processes, the complexity of the case law, the chronic delays affecting the court system, and our failure to properly fund alternatives to court, haven't — have barely been touched, and I'm not sure that any government is really prepared to tackle these problems head-on.

We British Columbians deserve a system that is focused on the short- and long-term wellbeing of children, that is built to minimize the impact of parental conflict on children, that provides the social and economic supports families in crisis need, that includes social and psychological services as well as legal services, and that is fundamentally designed to support promote the future functioning of families living apart. We deserve a system in which court is the last resort and collaborative negotiation is the first, and where a system in which people don't necessarily have to hire a lawyer to move forward with their lives.

If the justice system is going to change, it is 's going to change because enough a lot of people realize that business-as-usual hasn't worked for the last sixty years and that the status quo is not only unacceptable, it's harmful.

If this wikibook is being used to help you through a family law matter, and if you learn things through your process things that should be heard by law and policy makers, please consider writing to your MP and your MLA, or the federal minister in charge at the Department Minister of Justice, and or the BC Minister of provincial Attorney General. Write letters to your local media; , and press for continuing coverage of justice system issues rather than the usual one-and-done article published when something scandalous happens. Get on your local provincial court's Provincial Court family law committee. Run for election. Become a lawyer, a paralegal, or a mediator. Start community groups and Facebook groups. Volunteer with local advocacy centres, and if there isn't one, create one. Start newsletters, email lists, or local WhatsApp groups.

Change happens when can happen, but it's not going to happen until enough people exert beging to put pressure and say "this isn’t on the system demand change. What we've got is simply not good enough". Help make a difference!