We wanted to give you a quick reminder this week of LawMatters’ upcoming webinar on April 5th. Your LawMatters team will be hosting alongside Legal Aid BC to talk about Legal Aid publications that you can refer to in your reference work to support those going to Provincial Court without a lawyer. Although we’ll mention other Legal Aid resources, we wanted to focus in on publications during this webinar so you can see what is available to support those who may not be comfortable using online resources. This upcoming webinar is a follow up to our session on Feb 24, Supporting Self-Represented Litigants in Provincial Court (now available on CLBC’s Vimeo channel!), which we discussed in our previous post.
Legal Aid BC Resources for Supporting Self-Represented Litigants in Provincial Court
April 5 from 2:00-3:00 PDT
Cost: Free!
As you might remember from our previous post, Provincial Court oversees family, small claims, criminal, and traffic & bylaw matters. Below is a small teaser of some of the resources we’ll be talking about on April 5th.
- Living Together, Living Apart: This Legal Aid publication covers the basics of family law in BC and offers practical guidance to those looking to make agreements, including parenting and separation agreements. It covers a variety of relevant topics, including what laws apply when, what to do if you aren’t a permanent resident, and going to court if the spouses can’t agree.
- Also check out the MyLawBC website from Legal Aid, which has guided pathways to help people make their own separation plan, get family orders, and deal with court documents they’ve been served with.
- Parent’s Rights, Kid’s Rights: This publication explains what happens if the Director of Child Protection has concerns about a child’s safety or removes a child from the family home. It covers the child protection process for both Indigenous & non-Indigenous families and includes information on what social workers can do, making a safety plan and agreements, and what can happen at court appearances.
- Representing Yourself in a Criminal Trial: This publication explains what happens when an accused person wants to plead not guilty to a summary offence (aka a less serious offence). It covers the whole process from pre-trial matters such as getting information about your case to what happens during the trial. It also includes pre-trial and trial checklists, flowcharts for the trial process, and a sample letter to ask for information about the case from Crown Counsel.
We hope to see you there!