Legal Resources

Find websites and materials written in plain language.

Logo features a scale of justice and a book with the acronym "LSLAP" in white on a blue gradient background.

LSLAP Manual: Welfare (Income Assistance) Law

Law Students’ Legal Advice Program (LSLAP)
This chapter is from the manual used by law students handling cases at LSLAP’s legal clinics. It explains the types of welfare benefits available, including income assistance, disability assistance, and hardship assistance, along with eligibility requirements and rates. It also discusses recent changes in BC welfare law.
Last reviewed September 2024
Logo features a scale of justice and a book with the acronym "LSLAP" in white on a blue gradient background.

LSLAP Manual: Immigration Law

Law Students’ Legal Advice Program (LSLAP)
This chapter on Canadian immigration law is from the manual used by law students handling cases at LSLAP’s legal clinics. It explains the roles of key organizations like IRCC and CBSA, and the different immigration statuses such as permanent residents and foreign nationals.
Last reviewed September 2024
Thumbnail of the handbook cover featuring a collage of different families engaging in activities, with the AFCC-BC logo and title text above.

AFCC-BC Parenting Plan Guide

AFCC-BC (Association of Family and Conciliation Courts’ Provisional BC Chapter)
A guide for parents and professionals across BC to create parenting plans that focus on what’s best for the child and appropriate for their development. A parenting plan is a written agreement between parents about how they‘ll raise their children if they separate or get divorced, setting out how to share responsibilities and time with the kids.
Last reviewed September 2024
Logo featuring the letters FIPA, the words "your data your rights" and small coloured squares representing pixels.

Your Political Privacy

Freedom of Information and Privacy Association (FIPA)
This resource provides basic information about your privacy rights in elections. It covers who has access to your personal information in an election, what information they have, how they're allowed to use it, how you can protect it, and what to do if you think your privacy rights have been violated.
Last reviewed September 2024
Thumbnail of the handbook cover showing a child walking across a rainbow-toned ground. The Lawyers Against Transphobia logo is placed at the bottom.

Protecting Our Schools: A Handbook to Address Transphobia in Education

Lawyers Against Transphobia
A detailed guide to help school boards, staff, and students fight transphobia in schools. It was created by Lawyers Against Transphobia, a group of about 50 lawyers, teachers, parents, and justice workers, whose goal is to tackle transphobia by working within the legal system and with the media, and responding to transphobic incidents as they...
Last reviewed September 2024
Logo featuring the letters FIPA, the words "your data your rights" and small coloured squares representing pixels.

Complaint and Review Mechanisms

Freedom of Information and Privacy Association (FIPA)
This resource provides basic information about your options to make a complaint to authorities if you feel your privacy or access-to-information rights have been infringed upon. It includes what to do if you have an access-to-information or privacy issue with a BC public body or BC organization, or a federal body.
Last reviewed September 2024
Logo featuring the letters FIPA, the words "your data your rights" and small coloured squares representing pixels.

Your Health Information

Freedom of Information and Privacy Association (FIPA)
This resource provides basic information about your health information rights. It explains how your health information is used throughout the health system, health information confidentiality rights, the laws relating to health privacy information, who can access your health record, and more.
Last reviewed September 2024
Logo features a scale of justice and a book with the acronym "LSLAP" in white on a blue gradient background.

LSLAP Manual: Automobile Insurance (ICBC)

Law Students’ Legal Advice Program (LSLAP)
This chapter on automobile insurance law is from the manual used by law students handling cases at the LSLAP’s legal clinics. It’s an overview of the legislation, claims for accidents, optional insurance, disputes with ICBC, personal injury claims, and more.
Last reviewed September 2024
Logo with two swoops and a circle to represent a person, and "Legal Aid BC."

First Nations/Indigenous Courts

Legal Aid BC
Explains that if you identify as Aboriginal or Indigenous and you plead guilty to a crime or are found guilty, you might be able to have your bail or sentencing hearing in a First Nations/Indigenous Court in BC. These are criminal sentencing courts that focus on balancing rehabilitation, accountability, and healing.
Last reviewed September 2024
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Child or Young Victim

Explains the help available for children who are victims of crime. This includes agencies that can help and the PEACE (Prevention, Education, Advocacy, Counselling and Empowerment) programs which provide group and individual counselling for children aged three to eighteen.
Last reviewed August 2024