ALIS Board

Jerry Fawcett

Chair

Jerry Fawcett is the ALIS Board Chair. He is the Civic Literacy and Community Outreach Librarian with the Calgary Public Library, with responsibility for information service, collections, community outreach, and programming for legal and government information. Jerry is currently a member of the Calgary Poverty Reduction Initiative, Justice Constellation. His past involvement with public legal education and information (PLEI) initiatives in Alberta include being a member of the ACJNet Advisory Committee and a member of the Alberta Legal Services Mapping Project, Calgary Community Working Group.
Christopher Smith

Treasurer

Christopher Smith, PhD, currently serves as the Assistant Executive Director for the Muttart Foundation. In this role, he has lead responsibility for the Foundation’s work in the area of early childhood development. He also serves as the Foundation’s Assistant Secretary to the Board of Directors. In a volunteer capacity, Christopher chairs the Success by 6 Council of Partners for the United Way of the Alberta Capital Region. His professional interests and experiences include a focus on the changing nature of families, family life, and well-being. He has also worked with a number of organizations and initiatives that look at the broad areas of community legal education, conflict resolution, and restorative justice. Christopher joined the ALIS Board in April 2014, and lives in Edmonton.
Rhonda O’Neill

Secretary

Rhonda O’Neill is a Librarian with Parkland Regional Library, Alberta’s first regional library system established in 1959. At Parkland, Rhonda is a member of the consulting team, working with and providing support to a network of 50 public libraries across central Alberta. Prior to joining Parkland, Rhonda worked at the Alberta Law Libraries from 2001 to 2013 and the Nunavut Court of Justice from 1999 to 2001. Rhonda obtained a master of arts in Library and Information Studies in 1998 and a bachelor of arts in 1996 from Dalhousie University.
Brian K.

Director

Brian is currently the Director of the Organizational Learning Office (OLO) with the Alberta Justice and Solicitor General. OLO helps meet the educational and professional development needs of a large group of legal staff in the Justice Ministry. He is also an instructor at the University of Alberta Law School. Brian is involved with numerous volunteer programs that focus on access to justice issues. He has spent a majority of his legal career as a litigator in the Family Law division of the Government of Alberta. Brian joined the ALIS Board in June 2015.
Colleen Nicholls

Director

Colleen Nicholls is Legal Counsel for Resolution Services, which provides information, assistance and dispute resolution for self-represented parties appearing in the Alberta Courts. Colleen enjoys plain-language writing, and, in addition to creating training materials for staff, has written many self help kits for the public and has developed the Family Self Help section of the albertacourts.ca website.

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