Many of you may already know or have recently heard that I found a new home for providing legal services and mentorship. I am humbled to join a list of my respected professional mentors such as Tim Bailey (currently at the Law Foundation of BC) and Sarah Marsden (current Clinic Director/Professor at Thompson Rivers University Law) in becoming a part-time Supervising Immigration Lawyer here at the Law Student Legal Advice Program (“LSLAP”), a non-profit legal clinic which operates through UBC’s Allard Law School.
I work alongside incredible practitioners Chris Heslinga (Supervising Civil Lawyer) and Andrew Bonfield (Criminal Law) and am able to come UBC/Allard once a week to meet with students and prepare resources/strategies to assist more low-income and vulnerable clients. I try and stretch the five hours I have where I can 🙂
LSLAP offers summary legal advice and representation for low-income clients in a variety of legal areas (see: https://www.lslap.bc.ca/). There are income thresholds which those that operate phones and run summary advice clinics will screen for.
Specific to immigration, I supervise law student clinicians who are taking on cases ranging from refugee files to temporary residence, permanent residence, enforcement, appeals, and citizenship matters. We don’t currently do judicial reviews but I am working on some resources that may help self-represented litigants in this regard.
The benefit of LSLAP is that our clinicians can take on cases that other agencies may not be able to. We take on a lot of student matters, assist on temporary work issues, and in particular specialize in some of the roadmapping that help low-income individuals avoid legal problems that could come at high costs. Another area where we do a lot of work is with humanitarian and compassionate grounds applications and those requiring relief on temporary policies. I suspect that with increased emphasis on enforcement, we will also be assisting more individuals with guiding them on restoration.
We also rely heavily on a strong referral network to ensure our clients are matched up with other legal service providers and are aware of their ability to apply for legal aid, or to seek representation in complex refugee matters.
I personally review every immigration matter that goes out the door to make sure the advice is accurate and that we’re providing timely assistance (although with students, we may not be able to step in on emergencies – stays, pending removals, etc!)
Other practitioners may also find some benefit in the manuals LSLAP produces. See the Immigration and Refugee Law Manual here and the Citizenship manual here.
In short, this short blog is to let you all know about this resource for your clients and get in touch with me at immigration.sl@lslap.bc.ca if you would like to refer a client directly. You can also call the switch board at the info below:
Please call (604) 822-5791 to schedule an appointment.
Please call (604) 684-1628 to set up a Chinese language appointment at our Chinatown clinic.
如果你需要中文服務的話，請撥打(604) 684-1628 將會有人幫您預約時間.
Please note that LSLAP cannot give legal advice over the telephone. Also, please remember to bring a piece of ID.
Our office hours are Monday to Friday from 10AM – 4PM. We are closed on all public holidays.
See you and your clients soon!
