Counsel and Advocacy Law Lines Explained
Counsel and Advocacy law lines are the same as legal lines and legal hotlines and refers to facilities that provide free legal advice to those who are unable to afford a private attorney. Legallines or Hotlines in the United States commonly utilize volunteer attorneys who give up their time for the betterment of the community. Counselors and advocates are usually trained volunteers that undertake short interviews with clients in order to determine the best advice and/or legal information to provide. The website can then recommend the best step to resolve the dispute.
Counsel and Advocacy law lines try to address the unfortunate problem that many people do not know where to get good , solid legal information when they need it. Usually, the Hotlines and lines provide access to legal information through telephone lines, self-help books, referral services to individuals who need more than just good legal information but the assistance of a licensed legal professional.
Counsel/advocacy lines in the United States refer to volunteers that answer constituents’ questions regarding legal matters. This service is common with many public interest groups, trade/professional associations, and churches. Advice and assistance tend to be general in nature, although they are oftentimes concise enough to be helpful.
Advantages of Using Law Lines for Legal Support
One of the most obvious benefits of counsel lines and advocacy lines is that you can access an unlimited number of attorneys with different areas of specialty whenever you need them. Law Lines help you find the right attorney at the right time. Plus, advocates have the ability to add child support, alimony and IRS issues to your legal meeting package. Beyond that, lawyers are up to date on your case so they’re ready to assist you immediately. You aren’t having to tell the lawyer where you are in your case or what’s going on.
Another key benefit of counsel lines and advocacy lines is that they can save you a significant amount of money and time. There is no need to pay an initiation fee to a law firm or hire a family attorney on an as-needed basis. You pay only when you use the service, and you can choose the amount of legal time you need. You pay only for the advice you require, and Lawyers are available to advise you wherever you are in your case.
A unique option Law Lines offers is the availability of a domestic violence, sexual harassment or injunction lawyer for representation via phone call at any time and from any location. The benefit to having this kind of representation is the convenience of having an attorney there for you within minutes. Most lawyers will not meet you in person for family law or after-hours hours unless you pay them substantial fees up front or give them a retainer, however, with our Family ideals I Justice Council you can have an attorney with you in any domestic violence issue when you need them sofort.
Who Can Use Advocacy Law Lines
An Advocacy Law Line is a cost-effective, confidential 1-800 "Lawyer Line," that allows you to obtain legal information and, in some cities, free legal advice and representation in person or by phone with a Lawyers’ League attorney. There are no income restrictions, but if you are on a fixed income, you may find it helpful to speak with a Lawyers’ League attorney simply to see if you have an issue you should pursue. You may be called about a problem your friend, family member, neighbor, co-worker or acquaintance has that may be appropriate for the Law Lines program. If that happens, you can either give the information to your acquaintance or you can connect them directly with the Lawyer or Lawyer Line through your telephone and speaker phone.
If you qualify financially (as determined by your local office), you can speak to an attorney who can provide advice and may represent you in your case. These lawyers receive and are required to take these cases for free or at a reduced fee. The cases they take will build their resume and help them develop experience in family law.
Accessing Legal Support Via Law Lines
Law lines are easily accessed by dialling their specific telephone numbers, which vary from state to state. If you are in Alberta, for example, you would call 1-855-425-4256, whereas if you were in Quebec, you would call 1-800-668-8258. The Ontario line is 1-855-966-4041. The law line will usually be available 24 hours a day. The only time it will be closed is between December 23rd and January 2nd. Because it is administered by the Ministry of the Attorney General, these lines have lawyers ready at any time to help you.
You will be connected with a lawyer who is able to give you advice on your situation, but not provide extended legal counsel. The lawyer will be able to help you if you are not currently in a case, but cannot help you if you already have a court case going in your matter. These lines tend to be aimed at criminal and family matters, and not typically other civil matters, although the Ontario line does state that they are able to give advice on small claims matters. It is noted that the law line is not to provide ongoing legal representation. In contrast to community legal advice and resources, the law lines are provided by the Ministry of Attorney General of your province.
This service is confidential, but that said, you must also be honest and clear about the details of the situation and your personal history. Speaking to a lawyer you have retained , of course, allows for much more confidentiality than a law line would in general, but for many this will be perfectly suitable. When contacting the law line, you are required to give your name, address, date of birth, sex, and citizenship status, along with declaring that you have not yet consulted with a lawyer about the matter. Although the lawyer will not be retained, this will allow for the law line lawyer to obtain information based on your circumstances that can be extremely helpful to you.
You can either ask general information about the law surrounding your case, or even specific questions if you’re already up to speed and in a current court case. The line is there to give you general advice about family, criminal, real estate, immigration, personal injury, and housing law. It is also there to help you if you wish to go through the citizen’s arrest process and speak to the police about a matter. There are some things that the law line cannot help you with, such as giving you advice on how long your jail term could be, suggesting a plea to a specific criminal charge, and what the powers of a search warrant are. You need to find representation for those issues. Overall the 1-900 rate seems reasonable and cannot be complained about heavily, although like all services, you may run into issues with availability.
Drawbacks and Limitations of Law Lines
Challenges and Limitations of Counsel and Advocacy Law Lines
Despite the many benefits offered, counsel and advocacy law lines do come with a few challenges and limitations. There may be coverage limitations, such as services being limited to matters arising in a particular geographical area or state. Certain types of legal issues are more likely to be addressed than others. For example, criminal-related issues are unlikely to be handled by the attorney, as these may be referred to outside firms. Likewise, more serious immigration issues may be referred, as well. The law line client will typically enjoy full access to the attorneys but may not always receive a personalized follow-up service, which many people expect will happen in the case of other types of service.
Counsel and Advocacy Law Trends
As client requirements continue to evolve, there’s little doubt that the demand for counsel and advocacy law services will expand even further. Already we’re seeing an increase in first time clients. We have an influx of seniors who can no longer make decisions for themselves as previously. New families require more of our services, especially in the area of guardianship. Family groups are moving to Florida and require even more advise. Businesses looking at opportunities in Florida require counsel from companies they know and trust.
This is all translating into more work and less time to accomplish it. Thus, the greatest difficulty we now face is in managing the demand for services while maintaining the quality our clients expect. If we can manage to grow our business more incrementally, we’ll have more time to find and train the quality staff that we believe is required to provide the type of personal quality services we currently provide. We could hire more staff, but the feeling is that the quality of our services will suffer. And if you start with a team that is not quite up to par, you won’t realize the problem until too late. It takes quite a while to get ineffective staff out the door and you will not realize a gain in services until a year or more has passed.
For this reason, I see the greatest trend is going to be in technological advancements to solve the constraint of time. There are so many new areas that we need assistants for. Often it will be a case of having someone on the staff with rudimentary skills in an area, but the ability to find the right person online to assist and supervise the staff member and allow the fee earner to focus on the file. New technology will allow greater access to people and the ability to identify issues and find assistance to resolve them. All this technology allows for remote working, which is a boon for those of us who want to work from home .
The demand for information relative to advocacy and elder law will continue to expand. The information will continue to be more and more digital. Clients obtain much of their initial information from what they read online, both good and bad. Increasingly, clients now enter my office with an agenda for things they want to discuss and solutions that they expect to resolve their issues. I never could have dreamed of some of the "solutions" I hear when I first started practice. It makes it difficult for lawyers to do what lawyer do best, apply knowledge and experience to identify issues and recommend solutions to solve the problem at hand. Clients have plenty of information at their fingertips, but they don’t have the real life experience to think about the possible consequences of the single solution they have identified.
Thus, our roles as counselor and advocate is becoming more critical. You don’t just see the doctor to get medicine to treat an illness. You go to the doctor to review symptoms, to share your perception of the issue, to discover the underlying issue which may be something completely different. To a certain extent, the same applies to an attorney. Clients come to us with a set of problems, but rarely the underlying problem that needs to be resolved for the whole problem as presented to be resolved. We have to be better at identifying the real problems so that we can provide solutions for all of the problems. It is only once in a great while that a client will present a legal issue that really is straight forward and capable of being solved by a simple approach.
So my perspective on the future is an increased use of technology to identify and prioritize issues, and to connect us with the right people at the right time to discuss the issues and solutions that are appropriate for each individual client.