Written by Jeff Rose-Martland, SRL and NSRLP Advisory Panel member; originally published on Slaw, Canada’s online legal magazine.
If you’ve been adrift on the internet desperately trying not to drown in the flood of legal information, great news! You’ve found a raft!
No, that’s not really funny. When you’re representing yourself, trying to get to the information you want does often feel like drowning. There’s so much info, mostly not what you need, so you wind up flailing about desperate to stay afloat while the currents try to pull you under. Or you get caught in whirlpools of misinformation. Or weighted down by too much case law.
Few make an intentional choice to dive in and go DIY-lawyering. Most self-reps wind up here because they can’t afford a lawyer or can’t get a lawyer, and their legal issue won’t just go away. Sometimes it’s about fighting for your rights; sometimes it’s about defending yourself against someone else. Regardless, you should know that you’re not alone. Canadian news has been reporting on the increasing numbers of self-reps for decades now: we have a crisis throughout our justice system. Lawyers’ fees are out of reach of a majority of people, and legal aid income thresholds are very low – many cannot qualify because they earn too much. Even if you are financially eligible, legal aid may not be able or allowed to be involved in the type of matter you have. And as for pro bono work… well, anything you’ve heard about pro bono lawyers is almost certainly wrong. Individual lawyers can rarely afford to do cases for free and, when they do, it tends to be cases headed to the Supreme Court of Canada. The image of a stalwart lawyer taking a case for free simply because they believe in the rightness of the client is, sad to say, mainly fiction. So more and more people are washed away in the flood, just like you.
And there’s sharks and rocks in the water…
COVID drove a rapid increase in the amount of legal information available online, and even forced courtrooms into video hearings. Unfortunately, that same rise also increased the number of hazards for self-reps. There are now predators – people who claim to be able to tell you what to do for a much lower fee than a lawyer. Some have track-records in court as self-reps themselves, and some just speak in legalese. Social media is littered with them; they will take your money and, worse, may sink your case as well as your bank balance.
Even if they don’t want money, they can still harm you through the spread of misinformation. Take Romana Didulo, self-proclaimed “Queen of Canada.” She has issued “royal decrees”saying taxes are optional, debts are forgiven, and utilities are free. Those believing her have wound up with serious financial and legal problems. Similarly, people subscribing to the sovereign citizenship movement – also known as Organized Pseudolegal Commercial Arguments – wind up in a lot of trouble when they decide they know ways to nullify the legal system. And artificial intelligence (AI) is changing the world in innumerable ways, including the legal sphere – AI tools seem to offer help preparing documents and finding cases, but the technology isn’t there yet. Chatbots can produce realistic-looking documents with fake cases, and judges aren’t keen on that.
Even well-intentioned people can give you legal advice that’s bad, misleading, or just plain wrong. Which is why, on your legal quest, you will hear this sentence a whole lot: “I cannot provide you with legal advice.” Unless you retain a legal representative, anyone involved in the legal system will tell you this. If they give you advice, they become liable for the results: you could sue, they could get fired, or face discipline from their regulatory body. So everyone from a registry clerk to duty counsel will say, “I cannot give you legal advice.” It quickly gets tired.
But this sentence is also a very useful reminder to you. A legal representative you’ve hired can give you legal advice; advice from anyone else is of questionable value, ranging from personal opinion to bad direction to outright grift. An idea might be thrown at you, but you need to be very careful. Is it a life-preserver or is it bait? As your own representative, you need to know before you snatch it. You need to verify everything, which means knowing what sources to trust. So where do you start?
Public Legal Education and Information (PLEI) organizations, established nationwide by governments, law societies, and courts. You can search online for your province + “public legal information.” Here are a few pages with links to some: Justice Canada; the Supreme Court of Canada, and the Canadian Bar Association. PLEIs provide general information regarding the courts and legal system. These organizations can’t give you legal advice, but many offer referrals to lawyers who offer free consultations, or low-cost services for smaller matters.
Legal aid. Search legal aid office + your region. If you call, ask to speak with duty counsel. Even if they cannot represent you, they can provide information, answer general questions, or maybe refer you to others.
Lawyers. Many lawyers offer free initial consultations. Similar to legal aid, they’ll listen, help you understand your legal situation, and tell you what they would charge. If that’s not workable, they might be able to refer you to other individuals or services. If you’ve been through this process already, it still may be worth it to contact someone new. You can also inquire about “limited scope retainers” – unbundled services where you pay a lower fee for a specific service, such as drafting a motion.
Contact the court. Since COVID, most courts have an online presence. Some have pages just for self-represented litigants. Many courts also have duty counsel. This is a lawyer who you can speak with and get answers to general questions, especially about things like court procedure. You can get information on forms and procedures from the court registry as well. Pro Tip: start by telling the clerk you know what you want to do but not how to do it. That makes it clear that you don’t want legal advice. If they aren’t sure how to proceed, they will usually check with duty counsel. It’s also worth noting that some courts have been adapting their rules, procedures, and particularly forms, with the aim of assisting self-reps.
Law libraries. If you are looking for specific information on legal precedents, or information for lawyers, you can search out your local law society library. Some are open to the public (you may need to book an appointment), and their staff are very knowledgeable. They should be, as they help law students as well as lawyers. Staff can probably guide you toward the information you want.
The National Self-Represented Litigants Project. The NSRLP began as a research study into the increasing number of unlawyered people standing before judges, and evolved into an information and advocacy organization. The NSRLP has a number of resources: guides for self-represented litigants, blog posts, directories, and much more. If you visit, take a few minutes to fill out their SRL survey. The data collected is used to track the issues driving people to self-represent and to understand their experiences in the legal system, and that information is in turn used to advocate for systemic change.
The Canadian Legal Information Institute (CanLII) is a non-profit managed by the Federation of Law Societies of Canada. You will use it a lot, so bookmark CanLII now. It provides databases of legal precedents, searchable by region and court type. It also offers case commentary and articles. CanLII Connects has articles and discussion papers. The further you get into your matter, the more you will be using CanLII.
There are many groups spread across the country dedicated to helping SRLs or advocating for access to justice (A2J). These differ in area of focus and types of assistance, but even the ones that are far away may have information that is useful to you. They are friendly, and willing to provide answers or send you to someone who can. Add “canada law” and “access to justice” or “A2J” to your web searches.
And there’s much more. Lawyers, legal aid, and courts have taken to social media, posting video guides and explainers on YouTube, TikTok, and embedded on their websites. Some large law firms have online resources, intended for lawyers but available to everyone, or even written specifically for the public. Some law schools offer free online courses. You can also buy used law books online from a variety of vendors. Even if the book is not the current edition, it can give you the education you need. Pro Tip: check the reading lists for law schools.
If you are wondering about the legitimacy of advice or an individual, fact checking is easy. Search their name in CanLII – people who are legal professionals should appear in case law. Or check their online presence. Legal professionals are typically too busy to be constantly posting content. If the results scream influencer, perhaps this isn’t the right person for you. If their advice seems too good to be true, again, you can check on CanLII and online. This isn’t foolproof, but if it’s connected with scams or pseudo-law or cults, it will likely return a whole bunch of results saying so. Or you can take that advice or “fact” and contact any of the public sources or law societies and ask for help verifying it.
You may be surrounded by water, but you don’t have to swallow anything.
I hope this gets some more comments.
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Over many, many years, I’ve sought legal advice from every “legitimate” source one could possibly name. No one would even give me the time of day. Most of that was *after* I had prevailed as an SRL in my first appearance before a superior court judge facing counsel for three politically prominent organizations. I found key information on my own. Though I use CanLII in only the most rudimentary manner it has been a fabulous resource. I know that if I were a more sophisticated user it could do far more for me. Who is available to provide some guidance about that? Again, I have found no one. One example of how friendly I have found the legal profession to be is that the last time one of my comments was posted on slaw.ca was in 2023, to the column ‘The Legal Ethics of Delay’. written by Noel Semple – https://www.slaw.ca/2023/10/20/the-legal-ethics-of-delay/. Since then I have noticed that apart from articles contributed by the NSRLP the subject of access to justice no longer gets any attention on slaw.ca. Attention to it has very markedly diminished not only there but across all media, whether legal focused or general.
I think that information online is only of value if you have a qualified legal coach to help you interpret and apply it. They are growing in numbers and very affordable as you only pay for small spots of coaching time so that the work you are doing is being done correctly, it’s unclear why more airtime isn’t being given to self reps about this. I’m providing this not as a legal coach myself – I don’t take clients as retired- but I volunteer countless hours over the last 6 years with the Legal Coaches Association amd training legal professionals to provide guidance needed to self reps. I wish more people out there knew of these services!
Chris, there are essentially two aspects of litigation – procedural and what I call substantive. There are many experienced litigation lawyers who offer legal coaching on court process, and can often do so on a limited scope consultation, so long as they don’t need to dig in to the substance ofa legal dispute.
Nonetheless, legal information on basic court procedure should be provided by court clerks, who have a responsibility – pursuant to the Canadian Judicial Council’s Statement of Principles on Self-Represented Litigants – to properly orient self-represented litigants (SRLs) seeking procedural direction on their file.
In my experience, a common issue experienced by SRLs is an inability to find affordable counsel willing to assist them with formulating their legal arguments in line with similar fact case law precedent and the evidence they have at hand. Unfortunately, many litigation lawyers are loathe to wade into the substance of a litigation dispute without a large upfront retainer to review a client’s documents. This is particularly the case with SRLs who have complicated fact situations involving multiple legal issues with sophisticated grounds at play.
Before seeking out legal counsel to assist with tightening their legal position on a limited scope consultation, the SRL should take some time to create a concise and focused written summary of their legal dispute. In this respect, it is important to develop the skill of distilling one’s dispute down to only the most pertinent facts – a brief synopisis, as opposed to a a meandering novel filled with too much granular detail.
If you have a case with “litigation mileage” on it, consider that even the most experienced lawyer needs to get acclimated to the basic facts of a dispute – to get that 10,000 foot view before digging into the details. Many SRLs get too caught up with the details, and as a consequence, often find it difficult to articulate the basic “seed” of their dispute.
If the SRL spends some time to create a concise written overview of the dispute – say, no more than a page – it may help immensely to obtain a productive 1-2 paid working consultation with a lawyer who may get enough of an overview, sufficient to enable the lawyer to assist the SRL in articulating their legal position – because, at the end of the day,, many hotly contested legal disputes come down to each party’s ability to effectively articulate their legal position in line with case law precedent.
It can make all the difference for the SRL to learn to summarize their position effectively so that they may more easily obtain the limited scope assistance they require in order to get a more objective insight into the strengths and weaknesses of their case.
The writer needed to speak to SRLS about our encounters with these, recommended sources from whence he thinks we should seek help. My experience has been, too many of these recommended sources proved more un-reliable than the ones we all know we should avoid. Case in point, Alberta Court of Kings Bench (then QB) had a program to help SRLS. Law firms claimed to support it, but their actions spoke otherwise. They were more trying to make us their clients. Most appalling to me was that after we signed disclaimers and wavers of all sorts to protect them, they had the nerve to call their firms to “verify that we have never sued any of their clients in the past (or present)”. Either way they only told us we” need to get a lawyer”. They treated us like fools, needless to say how badly they looked to us for being SRLS. On the other hand, the Law Information Centre that had no lawyer was way more helpful and helped greatly with understanding court procedures. They would review our document for conformity with rules requirement (not content). As regards Canlii, our regard for it is “ Can Lie” for it is full of lies especially regarding SRL cases. It is more a tool for defaming SRLS. I often wonder if anyone reads the cases before publishing them for it takes nothing to see how pointless some decisions are. I must say I am offended by the reference to the OPCA term that a certain former judge conflate with SRL. I could go n and on.
That line about “I can’t give you legal advice, you need a lawyer” is all too familiar. There’s even a scene I wrote in my novel about this in the filing office. https://www.andreamaicreative.com/archive/diary-of-a-self-rep/ The reality is that they provide the forms on the website, but they don’t explain what anything means, and it’s not like people aren’t trying to find out. The information available simply isn’t adequate for understanding. And even worse, each province has its own format, there is nothing universal. I might find something in BC, but it won’t apply to me here in ON.