{"id":172,"date":"2006-10-05T13:58:33","date_gmt":"2006-10-05T17:58:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/shlep\/2006\/10\/05\/whats-happening-with-canadian-self-help"},"modified":"2006-10-05T16:49:14","modified_gmt":"2006-10-05T20:49:14","slug":"whats-happening-with-canadian-self-help-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/2006\/10\/05\/whats-happening-with-canadian-self-help-law\/","title":{"rendered":"what’s happening with Canadian self-help law?"},"content":{"rendered":"
The Canadian legal system and Bar often have very good lessons to teach their American counterparts.\u00a0 So, I recently took a quick look at the state of self-help law in Canada.\u00a0\u00a0 Below are a few things that I learned.\u00a0 My main reaction, however, is that shlep<\/em> could really use a contributor from Canada to help us understand that nation’s experiences, experiments and plans\u00a0in the self-help law arena.\u00a0 If you or someone you know in Canada might want to join Team Shlep<\/a>, please let us know.<\/font>\u00a0<\/font>\u00a0 <\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/div>\n
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Here are quick results and\u00a0reactions to an evening spent online touring Canadian self-help materials (I’d very much appreciate corrections or amendments):<\/font> <\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n
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\"CanadaFlagG\"\u00a0 To no one’s surprise, Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin of the Canadian Supreme Court was voicing her concerns recently over the numbers of self-represented litigants throughout the court system.\u00a0(see, Canada.com<\/em>, “Chief Justice warns of ‘epidemic’ of self-representation in courts<\/a>,” Aug. 13, 2006; \u00a0cbcNews<\/em>, “Self-representation creating chaos in courts<\/a>:chief justice,” Aug. 12, 2006) \u00a0Perhaps the reporters covering Justice McLachlin missed\u00a0other salient points, but it is disconcerting that the only solutions for the “epidemic” that are mentioned in the above articles are her suggestions that lawyers might lower their fees and that judicial vacancies be filled more quickly.<\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/div>\n
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—<\/strong> I could find only two court-related online self-help centers (centres) in Canada: The British Columbia Supreme Court Self-Help Information Centre<\/font><\/a>\u00a0and the Nova Scotia Self-Help Project<\/a> and Information Guides<\/a>.\u00a0 In addition, there is the private Law Courts Education Society of British Columbia – Self Help Centre<\/font><\/a>, whose materials include How to Conduct an Appeal – Civil Cases<\/font><\/a>\u00a0[pdf., 16 pp] and <\/font>Responding to an Appeal – Civil Cases<\/font><\/a>\u00a0[pdf., 15 pp]<\/font>.\u00a0 The British Columbia self-help centre appears to be a prototype resulting from a major project<\/a> there to develop models for coordinating services for the self-represented.\u00a0 Another project that seems worth watching is a 2005 study of Alberta Rules of Court relating to the self-represented (Memorandum<\/a>, 95-pp, pdf).<\/font>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
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— <\/strong>Canada has a major online website called the Access to Justice Net<\/strong><\/em><\/a> (ACJNet), and I was told that it is a major self-help resource for all Canadians.\u00a0 Although the site is aimed at providing the public with easy access to information about Canadian laws and its legal system and government, ACJNet is remarkedly silent about self-help law efforts and cannot be said to encourage or cater to those interested in self-representation.\u00a0 Neither Self-Help nor any similar term is a keyword choice in lengthy pulldown menu on the Home Page, and self-help is not mentioned either on ACJNet’s Purpose page<\/a> or in a comprehensive list of\u00a0FAQ<\/a> links.\u00a0 Similarly, the only link for self-help on the entire<\/em> Public Legal Information Resources page is the Self-Help Centre<\/a> of the Law Courts Education Society of British Columbia<\/font>.<\/font><\/font><\/font><\/div>\n
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— <\/strong>Numerous Canadian States appear to have Public Legal Education and Information Services — non-profit organizations with the goal of promoting access to justice.\u00a0 Because the <\/font>New Brunswick PLEIS<\/font><\/a> specifically mentions the goal of seeking to assist the public in “improving their ability to deal with legal matters,” I looked more closely at that website.\u00a0 Once again, I was disappointed.\u00a0 Despite containing <\/font>many documents<\/font><\/a> with titles that sounded relevant to self-representation, it became clear that only small claims court matters were addressed in the self-help context.\u00a0 However, even the notion of appearing without counsel in small claims court is undermined by an e-pamphlet at the site called <\/font>You and Your Lawyer<\/em><\/font><\/a>, which gives a $200 dispute with an auto mechanic as its very first example of when you need a lawyer’s help.\u00a0 [Last month, in our post a guide or a guild?<\/a> on American bar associations and self-help law, we cited the New York Bar Association’s pamplet of the same name, <\/font>You and Your Lawyer<\/font><\/a>\u00a0as being anti-self-help.\u00a0 Ironically, not even NYSBA’s discussion of When Do You Need a Lawyer? mentions such a\u00a0minor matter.]\u00a0<\/font><\/font><\/div>\n
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\"CanadaFlagN\"\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font>Of course, my survey of self-help law in Canada was too brief and incomplete.\u00a0 It does suggest, however, both that shlep<\/em> needs a regular contributor with a Canadian perspective and that the discussion between Canadian and American slef-help advocates would be mutually beneficial.<\/font><\/div>\n

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The Canadian legal system and Bar often have very good lessons to teach their American counterparts.\u00a0 So, I recently took a quick look at the state of self-help law in Canada.\u00a0\u00a0 Below are a few things that I learned.\u00a0 My main reaction, however, is that shlep could really use a contributor from Canada to help […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":437,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[896,899],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-resources-consumer","category-website-admin"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/437"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}