Swift Action provides sample documents to help SRLs with Ontario small claims cases.
David Turner says that precedent is the first thing that every lawyer looks for in preparing a case, and precedent is what he seeks to provide to SRLs with his website, Swift Action. Swift Action provides downloadable “Case-Packs,” which are comprehensive sets of sample court documents, forms and filings for the Ontario Small Claims Court. Case-Packs cost $30-$50, and provide a complete context surrounding fictitious cases, as well as formatting tips. A Case-Pack provides a litigant with an end-to-end view of the actual documents a SRL will need to create, via examples.
The current Case-Packs relate to small claims cases in Ontario, but Turner has plans to expand his offerings to encompass other provinces and case types. The inspiration for Swift Action came when Turner, a lawyer who formerly worked at a leading national law firm, sat down to draft a plaintiff’s claim for small claims court, and found himself at a loss: “Like most lawyers, I had never actually started a court document from scratch. Until that point, I had always started claims and defences using two or three sample documents from the firm’s database to get things moving. Now that I no longer had that access, I turned to the Internet – but after hours of frustrated searching, I couldn’t find trustworthy sample legal documents. There were high-end legal research services available, but they cost thousands of dollars a year. Besides, I didn’t need hundreds of legal documents, I only needed two or three.”
The result was Swift Action. “I started Swift Action to give people without a lawyer a place to obtain reasonably-priced, lawyer-drafted, sample legal documents.” Having reviewed Swift Action and the Case-Packs, NSRLP is satisfied that they present a reliable resource for SRLs. And we love that Swift Action donates $1 from every Case-Pack sold to Pro Bono Ontario!