A father's crusade for rights

National Post, by Ian Harvey, Saturday, September 18, 2004

It's easy to find Stacy Robb's one-room office in the back of an Elm Street walk-up off Yonge Street: Just follow the trail of cigarette smoke.

There, amid the clutter of files, butts and books, you'll find Robb, two phones on the go and a client waiting. His rapid-fire conversation is peppered with case citations, court rules, family law sections and the odd giggle. He's no lawyer and he's never claimed otherwise, but over the years he's taught some members of the bar a trick or two about family court process.

In fact, Robb, 49, looks every bit the former truck driver who left school in Grade 9. His hair is unfashionably long, limp and defies styling, while a rough stubble raises the question as to why there's a bottle of after-shave on his desk. Robb peers up through his 1970s oversized aviator bifocals and smiles, flicking ash from his rumpled shirt hanging loose outside his pants. He signs off both phone calls abruptly and turns to his waiting client to suggest she disappear "to go have a coffee for half an hour."

"We won!" he says gleefully. This time it's an international victory. An Irish court ruled on Monday that the estranged wife of Paul Sherman must return to Toronto to settle a custody and access issue. For Sherman it was a big step in a five-month battle to see his daughter, after his wife suddenly fled to Ireland in April with their then four-month-old child. Though Sherman faces more hearings in Toronto to establish what is in the best interest of the child, he's ecstatic that Robb brought the case back to Ontario. "Stacy was a superstar for us," he says. "He played a massive role."

Robb is just as thrilled. He was instrumental in organizing the paperwork and applications to Ontario courts to set off the legal dominos required by international law, which holds that any custody issue must first be settled in the court of jurisdiction. It's always personal for Robb, who knows all too well the pain and absurdity so often found in family court because he's lived it.

Yes, Robb is an oddball. But he is unrepentant, obsessed with his work. It's a simple premise: If you cannot afford a lawyer, Robb will guide you through the labyrinth of family court rules, arm you with the paperwork, prime your patter and point you to the court to act on your own behalf.

On rare occasions he will do the talking in court for a client, if the presiding judge grants permission. If the matter is too complex or beyond his capabilities, he suggests a lawyer.

Bengt Lovblom, a Scarborough small-business owner, was uncomfortable representing himself in a custody battle, so he did retain the lawyer Robb recommended. But with two weeks to go before trial, his 14- and 16-year-old sons unexpectedly showed up on his doorstep and refused to return to their mother, despite police intervention. Desperate measures were called for. Lovblom fired his lawyer to clear the record and, with Robb's help, brought an emergency motion to secure custody.

First impressions, though, nearly sent Lovblom packing. "I thought he was a little flaky when I first met him," Lovblom admits. "But then he seemed to know what he was talking about." Sherman agrees: "My sister found him through the Internet, but when I first met him I thought: 'What I have I got myself into? He looks like a '60s hippie."

Still, Robb gets results.

"I think he fills a real need," says lawyer Allan M. Cooper, whose office is down the hall. "Because there are people who cannot afford legal counsel in family court. Those who make less than $30,000 a year qualify for legal aid, while those making $75,000 to $80,000 probably can afford to pay for a lawyer. But what about those in the middle, between $30,000 and $80,000?"

Robb's transformation began when a substance-abuse problem got out of hand and his marriage failed in 1990. He emerged from rehab a stranger to his then infant son and six-year-old daughter. With no access and no rights, he turned to the emerging men's movement for support.

"I started by printing these stickers that said: 'The Real Crime Begins in Family Court,' " he says with a laugh. "I put them all over wherever I went on the TTC." He formed his own advocacy group, DADS Canada (Divorce and Defence Strategies), while pursuing his access battle through the courts. But something happened along the way. Robb found himself conferring with kindred sprits in courthouses and at men's meetings. In spite of his lack of formal education and a mild learning disability, he started to teach himself the system. Today DADS Canada has a Web site, a motorhome headquarters and an advisory board. And while most of Robb's clients are men, he does help women with custody issues as well.

But Robb is not getting rich. Though his hourly rate is $60 to $75 an hour, most of his clients have balances owing on their accounts. "I need someone to help with the business side," he admits. "If I don't do something I'm going to lose this office and have to work out of the motorhome."

The reality is not lost on his supporters. "I've tried to help him because he needs to be more businesslike to make a living, to collect retainers up front from people," says Cooper, a 16-year veteran of family court.

"He is, to my knowledge, the only one doing this type of work," says Pauline Green, now retired after 25 years of family law practice in the east end. "He is actually a smart guy who knows a lot of law. And he's got a good heart."

The combination of vocation-driven passion and stubbornness, Green notes, gives Robb an edge over many lawyers who assume their general legal background will carry them through the complex and intricate rules of family court.

Robb's weakness tends not to be his lack of training but his own body politic. In court, Green was constantly chiding him to use more diplomatic language in documents, and it seems to have sunk in.

"He has mellowed," Cooper says. "His pleadings are less adversarial and less antagonistic."

The one case Robb never won in court was his own. In the end, it was fate and circumstance that delivered what he had sought from the start. His daughter has just moved out on her own after completing school, while his son has moved in with him and is enrolled in Grade 10.

Robb's fight in the courts is far from over, but these days, he is becoming part of the system he set out to rail against.

© National Post 2004