CACLC uses experience delivering remote services to continue providing assistance during pandemic10/27/2020 Having worked remotely for many years with sites across the province, the Central Alberta Community Legal Clinic (CACLC) was uniquely positioned to be able to quickly transition volunteers to conduct appointments remotely. Equally important, the organization was able to transition all their staff immediately to working from home without any difficulty or disruption in services.
During the rapid shifts in legislation this spring, the CACLC also endeavored to keep the public informed by posting timely and accessible legal information on our social media accounts. The posts we shared were able to reach over 100,000 people this way. The silver lining for the organization in all the disruption caused by the pandemic has been the ability to attend court proceedings remotely. The organization has funding from the Alberta Law Foundation and an Anonymous Donor for the Alberta Rural Legal Assistance Initiative (ARLAI) which extends legal assistance to rural Albertans after their summary legal advice appointments. This assistance typically includes such things as additional legal advice and coaching as well as filling out forms, striking documents, and negotiations with an opposing party or counsel. With the availability of remote court, we are very happy to be able to include representation in court proceedings to the list of services for these rural Albertans.
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By Shaunna Mireau
I am the President of the Canadian Association of Law Libraries / L'Association canadienne des bibliothèques de droit. Our group is dedicated to promoting the networking, professional development and career growth of all law librarians in Canada, no matter where they work. We are committed to promoting law librarianship, developing and increasing the usefulness of Canadian law libraries and fostering a spirit of co-operation among them, providing a forum for meetings of persons engaged in or interested in law library work, and co-operating with other organizations that tend to promote the objects of our Association or the interests of our members. A significant interest of our members is Access to Justice. Many law librarians work in public facing law libraries – in Alberta, this includes the Alberta Law Libraries as well as legal information specialists working at our provincial law schools, at the legislature, with government departments at all levels of government and with public legal education groups. Other members work inside law firms, many of who do pro-bono work or volunteer with agencies that assist low income individuals. CALL/ACBD members are trusted guides in navigating legal information. Our strengths are in collecting and organizing legal information, finding and sharing answers to legal problems, and helping lawyers and others navigate legal information effectively and efficiently. We are front line workers in legal information and work collectively with others, often behind the scenes, in creating solutions to access to justice problems. We are here to help. On March 16, 2020 Alberta Law Libraries (ALL) closed our doors in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. During our closure ALL continued to focus on meeting the legal research and legal information needs of Albertans. Our library staff worked hard to connect remotely with users by email and telephone which included our “Ask a Law Librarian” service. ALL, like many other organizations, had to immediately pivot through a pandemic - in order to continue to serve our users, while keeping them safe. This included suspension of fees for document delivery and remote access to databases typically only available onsite in the library. We continually updated our Stay Current blog with COVID-19 news, specific to Alberta Courts, federal and provincial legislation, health orders, as well as a COVID-19 Research Guide.
On August 31, 2020, in alignment with Courthouse guidelines and public health measures, ALL reopened our physical space for all our users. Today, you are able to:
Throughout this experience, ALL worked to ensure that the best quality of service available was delivered to the public in an effective manner. For more information, reach out to us at lawlibrary@just.gov.ab.ca or follow our Stay Current blog. To better understand how ALL can assist you please refer to our FAQ section below. The CBA’s Access to Justice Subcommittee has created the Reaching Equal Justice: Advocacy Guide, to help people in the legal profession find a starting point to effectively advocate for equal justice. The guide summarizes key access-to-justice issues around the themes of preventing problems, providing legal services and transforming justice. The guide links to public legal education resources such as legal health checks, to assist people in recognizing their legal issues early on. It also includes advocacy tools that will help lawyers take action to advocate for needed changes to the justice system, such as key messages, questions to ask politicians, and sample social media posts.
Visit https://www.cba.org/CBA-Equal-Justice/Resources/Advocacy-Guide for more details. Calgary Legal Guidance (CLG), Pro Bono Law Alberta (PBLA) and the Public Interest Law Clinic at the University of Calgary’s Faculty of Law (PILC) are pleased to partner on a joint recruitment initiative with Judith Hanebury, QC, Retired Master of the Court of Queen’s Bench.
The joint recruitment drive aims to recruit active and retired lawyers and judges to provide virtual advice to Albertans dealing with debt. This project arose from a growing need for consumer debt support due widespread unemployment and other socioeconomic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. “Now, more than ever, the importance of delivering pro bono legal support to Calgarians is paramount,” says Marina Giacomin, Executive Director of CLG. “As we enter our 49th year of providing free legal guidance to vulnerable Albertans, the rising number of clients we are seeing with employment matters, family matters including domestic violence, consumer debt and more are mounting as a result of the pandemic.” “The provision of pro bono legal services is central to the ethics of the legal profession and Alberta lawyers have always stepped up, especially in times of crisis, to help individuals who cannot afford their fees” says Nonye Opara, Executive Director of PBLA. “While the COVID-19 pandemic has created barriers to accessing certain services, legal service providers continue to offer programming using creative virtual platforms together with robust training support that make it easy for lawyers to offer their unique services from anywhere and at anytime”. |