Author: Audrey Jun

Audrey Jun is the Clicklaw Program Coordinator at Courthouse Libraries BC. She manages Clicklaw, working to connect people across the varied public legal education landscape. Audrey was called to the BC Bar in 2014 and combines backgrounds in law, public legal education, and technology.

Intro to LSLAP – a Clicklaw Contributor

Community posts
LSLAP
Free legal advice for low-income people in Metro Vancouver

By Emma Wilson
Peter A. Allard School of Law J.D. Candidate

Are you familiar with LSLAP? Maybe you’ve seen some of our students in court, or maybe you know someone who has used our legal services. The Law Students’ Legal Advice Program (LSLAP) is a student-run non-profit society dedicated to providing legal advice and representation to low-income people in the Metro Vancouver area.

LSLAP was started in 1969 by a small group of law students at the University of British Columbia. In 1978, we incorporated as the Greater Vancouver Law Students’ Legal Advice Society. We now have an independent Board of Directors and two paid supervising lawyers, but for the most part, LSLAP is still student-run and student-driven.

It can be very difficult for low-income earners to afford a lawyer, and even more difficult to represent themselves in a legal proceeding. LSLAP exists in order to bridge the gap between the services offered by publicly-funded legal aid and the many legal matters in which low-income people find themselves unrepresented.

We are happy to take on cases for people dealing with issues including but not limited to:

  • Employment Insurance claims
  • Tenant-side Residential Tenancy issues
  • Human Rights Tribunal proceedings
  • Immigration Review Board
  • Employment Law (ESB and small claims court)
  • Workers Compensation Board
  • Canada Pension Plan and Old Age Pension claims
  • Summary proceedings in criminal court

But wait, there’s more!

Clicklaw Wikibooks Survey 2015

How we can improve Clicklaw

We recently launched a survey to study users’ needs on Clicklaw Wikibooks, our collaboratively developed, plain language legal publications that are made available on the same open-source platform used for Wikipedia. Clicklaw Wikibooks provide information in a variety of formats, from browser-based reading, to PDF, to EPUB, or even print-on-demand, which is available to all users and is also used to print titles for CLBC‘s LawMatters program.

wiki

After selecting one of the titles on the site, users are prompted by a pop-up window, which asks them to answer a survey once they are finished browsing. At the end of their session, they are presented with a short survey about their visit, with a chance to enter a monthly draw for a $100 prepaid Visa Gift Card.

To prevent being asked to fill out the survey again on repeat visits, a cookie will be stored on the user’s computer after they have completed the survey. This cookie can be deleted or cleared by the user to view the survey again. Multiple entries will not be counted.

The contest is open to Canadian residents, though staff and contractors of Courthouse Libraries BC or Canadian Research Institute for Law and the Family will not be eligible to enter. Depending on the type of survey the user is prompted with, they may be asked to enter a follow-up survey by email for additional chances to win.

Stay tuned for news about the survey! Read JP Boyd’s blog posts about the surveys, Subscribe to our RSS feed, and follow us on Twitter: @Clicklaw.