You may be aware that the NSRLP has established an online petition to try to include more public voices, including SRLs and friends of SRLs, in the important debate over the expansion of paralegal practice in Ontario. We are also encouraging lawyers and paralegals who support the principle of trained and licensed paralegals handling some types of family cases to sign and comment.
NSRLP referenced the petition, and some of the hundreds of comments that have been posted, in our detailed response to Bonkalo on the paralegal proposals which we submitted on May 15th. (A second NSRLP submission, on legal coaching and unbundling, was written by our Research Fellow Nikki Gershbain).
The paralegal petition was featured in a Toronto Star story and is now approaching 1,000 signatories.
We are leaving the petition up while the debate continues, and if you have not already done so, we encourage you to sign and share, and to read the heartfelt comments on the petition. The message is: change is needed now to relieve the Access to Justice crisis in Ontario family courts, and this is one small step toward that goal.
