Exciting BLG Pro Bono Project with Legal Services Board of Nunavut

CLA has developed an exciting partnership with the Legal Services Board (LSB) of Nunavut and Borden Ladner Gervais LLP to develop public legal education material. Lawyers and law students from BLG are working with the LSB to develop radio scripts in the area of poverty law (e.g., family law, wills and estates) that the LSB can use to increase access to justice for Nunavummiut.

The LSB is the territorial organization that delivers legal aid in Nunavut. It provides criminal, family, child welfare, as well as civil and poverty legal services to Nunavummiut through three regional clinics.  The LSB participates in CLA’s Summer Internship Program with CLA students working at the Iqaluit and Rankin Inlet clinics.  Madeleine Redfern, the mayor of Iqaluit and a member of the CLA, helped develop this partnership in her role as Chair of the LSB.

Furthering public legal education is part of the LSB's mandate and is essential to increasing Nunavummiuts’ access to justice. The LSB has had great success in the past in providing public legal education material with a weekly radio show, supplemented with local community radio appearances by counsel who are on circuit.  Radio is the medium of choice to disseminate information for a number of reasons including the size of the territory, relatively high levels of illiteracy, and its accessibility. Additional radio shows will have a positive impact, in particular providing key legal information for individuals in remote communities who are not able to readily consult with a legal professional.
 

CLA Intern Peter Lavelle with LSB Nunavut Staff