Law Libraries Accept the SRL Challenge

The blog of the National Self-Represented Litigants Project run by the University of Windsor Faculty of Law has a recent guest post on the role law libraries can play to help self-represented litigants.

It is written by Annette Demers, Acting Law Librarian and Sessional Lecturer, University of Windsor, Melanie Hodges Neufeld, Director of Legal Resources, Law Society of Saskatchewan, and Dale Barrie, Information, Research and Training Services (IRTS) Manager, Alberta Law Libraries. Demers is also the current President of the Canadian Association of Law Libraries:

"Much effort is required in order to ensure that SRLs and the larger public understand that the law library is a resource available to them. Through partnerships with other public service providers such as public libraries, Legal Guidance or other pro bono agencies, the law library will benefit through increased exposure, and SRLs will ultimately benefit by learning how to access a significant resource that is freely available to them."

"Integration with other court service providers and general awareness raising campaigns will help to ensure that proper referrals are made, and that SRLs can be provided with the option of accessing information resources that may prove to be very useful to them.   Additional partnerships may also be pursued to more efficiently deliver legal information to SRLs. In Saskatchewan, the Law Society Library has been exploring options for a more coordinated approach with several other legal information providers." 

"The law library must also continue to increase its role in the development and provision of information available online via library and court websites."

"By employing best practices in website design and usability, using plain-language approaches in developing public legal education and information tools, and by engaging people in multiple places and in multiple formats, the law library will increasingly be seen as a destination for anyone with a legal information need."

"An important challenge for the legal profession is building public awareness about the variety of tools available to SRLs, including law librarians and the services and materials that they provide."

Earlier Library Boy posts on the National Self-Represented Litigants Project include:

• University of Windsor Law Prof Finds Self-Represented Litigants Going Through "Real Trauma" (June 6, 2012)
• Study Shows Many Self-Represented Litigants Treated With Contempt (January 3, 2013)
• Bibliography on Self-Represented Litigants (January 22, 2014)