People’s Law School Annual Report 2015-16

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Contents

150-900 Howe StreetVancouver BC V6Z 2M4604-331-5400info@publiclegaled.bc.ca

What is the People’s Law School? 3

Report from the Chair 4

Overview from the Executive Director 5

Highlights of 2015-16 6

85 Communities Served Across BC 8

Our In-Person Services in 2015-16 10

Developing our Capability 12

Strengthening our Sector Ties 13

Our Funders 14

Financial Statements 14

Board of Directors 16

Staff 16

The People’s Law School is a non-profit charitable society registered under the Societies Act of British Columbia and with the Canada Revenue Agency (# 88722 5795 RR 0001)

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What is the People’s Law School?Our visionOur vision is a province where people have the knowledge, skills and attitudes to resolve everyday legal matters.

Our missionOur mission is to facilitate, promote, develop and distribute public legal education and information to people in British Columbia.

Our approachOver the past year we worked to transform our organization to meet the needs of British Columbians, now and in the future. Our direction is clear, and we committed to improving the quality and effectiveness of our resources and services. Our five year strategy was refined; it serves as the touchstone to guide our work to 2020 and beyond.

• Secure program and project funding to support the public legaleducation and information (PLEI) needs of people in BC.

• Utilize technology to efficiently and creatively increaseoutreach, access to and impact of PLEI in BC.

• Improve internal and external communications toincrease awareness and access to PLEI in BC.

• Develop tools to measure and assess impact of PLEI in BC.

• Enhance community alliances and partnerships thatstrengthen awareness and access to PLEI in BC.

• Recruit the best people to facilitate, promote,develop and distribute PLEI in BC.

What we do Since 1972, the People’s Law School has provided thousands of British Columbians with resources and services to help them solve their everyday legal problems. We do this through 1) the information we develop in print and online on the legal problems of daily life 2) our one-hour classes and Justice Theatre offered around BC through community partners and 3) our information and referral service.

Volunteers are key to what we do: lawyers, notaries and other justice system stakeholders help us develop our resources. They also deliver free legal education classes at community centres, public libraries, seniors’ centres and immigrant settlement agencies throughout BC.

Our strategic objectives

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Report from the ChairOn behalf of the board and staff of The People’s Law School, I am pleased to present our 2015/16 annual report which presents an overview of our activities and accomplishments for the past year.

We have much to be proud of: last year PLS made significant contributions to access to justice by providing new and updated education and information resources throughout the province. Our reach is expanding: users of our resources on Clicklaw Wikibooks is up by 77%; the number of persons served by our information and referrals service increased by 28%; and we exceeded last year’s number of programs offered to the public by 5%.

In addition, this year the Board focused on ensuring that PLS has the right strategy and staff team in place to transform our organization. Our goal is to ensure PLS has the appropriate direction, staff, tools and partners to meet the evolving demands of the PLEI community. The Board is confident we have an effective plan in place.

I’d like to welcome Patricia Byrne as our new Executive Director, who stepped into the role last winter. And I thank Drew Jackson, whose term as Executive Director last year, while brief, was instrumental in starting the transformation of our strategy, resources, and staffing for our core team.

As I conclude my term as Chair on June 8, 2016, I would like to recognize and thank the following outgoing Directors for their contribution of time and talent over the years to PLS: Helen Low, Barrister and Solicitor, Fasken Martineau; Mark Waslen, CA, Partner, MNP LLP; and MaryAnn Reinhardt, Paralegal, RDM Lawyers. I am grateful for the support of such a remarkable group of colleagues as our Board members over the years.

In the year ahead, I am confident that under the direction of our new leadership team, PLS will continue to make great strides in working with our funders and community partners to advance a strong and diverse program for public legal education and information in British Columbia.

Tim TimbergChair

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Overview from the Executive DirectorThe People’s Law School is a not-for-profit society that helps British Columbians resolve their legal problems. We do this by identifying “everyday” situations that have a legal aspect—such as a death in the family or paying taxes—and clearly explaining the key legal points and steps a person can take to work through them. Our publications and our classes are designed to help people help themselves, and avoid legal situations from escalating into legal problems or disputes.

Our goal: to make lives better, by providing access to justice.

With such a lofty goal, it’s important to inject a note of realism: how do we know we’re making a difference? During the year, we took steps to better measure impact by re-designing our user survey questions and introducing digital tools to analyze more effectively the results and share information throughout the organization. These are “first steps” to our developing robust evaluation plans for our resources and services, a critical component of measuring their effectiveness.

“First steps” also applies to many other aspects of PLS’ operations during 2015/16. Our strategic plan was refined to better reflect the changing needs of the BC public for legal education and information. We conducted an organization-wide analysis of the competencies needed to deliver our products and services over coming years, and a plan to integrate them into PLS. We undertook the first phase—developing a digital strategy--in our website renewal project. We advanced plans with our partners to develop new resources over new digital platforms. Collectively, these initiatives form the foundation of PLS’s future work to 2020 and beyond.

2015/16 also saw continued success in program and resource development and delivery. A new, comprehensive resource on consumer law was developed, for roll-out in 2016/`17. Five publications were completely updated, two of which were re-written to remove “legalese”. All were made available in print and digital—including wikibook—formats. Website visitors to People’s Law School Wikibooks increased 77% over the previous year. The number of law classes (89) and participants at them (3549) was greater this year compared to last.

The volunteers, staff and directors of the People’s Law School work tirelessly to provide British Columbians with practical information on how to manage and resolve life’s legal problems. Without their talent and commitment, The People’s Law School would not exist. We thank them for their continued trust and support, particularly during the past year of transition and change.

This annual report provides more information about our work during 2015/16, our accomplishments and challenges. We hope it gives you a sense of our enthusiasm for our work and our optimism for a future where there is access to justice for all British Columbians.

Patricia Byrne BA, JD, MBAExecutive Director

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Highlights of 2015-16

Resources and Services for the PublicPLS’s core activities are:

Easy-to-read, practical informationWe provide clear language information online and in print on the legal problems of daily life, such as making a will, consumer law issues, and legal problems in the workplace.

Legal education programsCollaborating with community partners around the province, we organize classes for the public on legal topics they both request and need. These are held in venues including public libraries, seniors’ centres, and immigrant settlement agencies.

Information and referrals Through our PLSask service (phone, e-mail and walk-in), our staff connect people with legal information and assistance.

Justice Theatre Our Justice Theatre program stages interactive dramatic performances and public forums in classrooms and community settings around the province, and occasionally in other provinces and territories. These cover legal issues relevant to students (e.g. bullying, consequences of a youth record) and those with unique legal needs (e.g. the Indigenous community).

Justice Theatre heads to Haida Gwaii (left to right): Rob McAninch, Parm Soor, Raahul Singh, Isaac Keoughan, Raj Lal

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Easy-to-read, practical informationIn 2015, 40,020 people were helped via our 15 Wikibooks¹ appearing on www.clicklaw.bc.ca, a 77% increase in viewers over the previous year. The most-visited People’s Law School Wikibooks were:

Distribution of our print publications was on par with the preceding year. During the year, PLS distributed over 70,000 booklets on 22 distinct topics throughout British Columbia. The most popular People’s Law School booklets in print were:

The popularity of these titles reflects the continued importance of print to a growing demographic sector: seniors and their families. It also reflects PLS’s philosophy of making our information available at the time and place when it is most needed and in the format most accessible to clients. Important distribution points for our titles are health care facilities (hospitals, clinics, palliative care facilities), health care charitable organizations (e.g. Alzheimer’s Society), places of worship, seniors’ organizations, funeral services and community centres. Print format is most appropriate for distribution of information at these locations.

¹ Wikibooks are digital open-content publications. Only lawyers and other legal content specialists approved by PLS and by Courthouse Libraries BC are authorized to edit PLS wikibooks appearing on Courthouse Libraries site, www.clicklaw.bc.ca.² Consumer law topics in general rated highly with the public who accessed PLS’s information online. “What is a Credit Card?” was by far our most popular YouTube video, with 24, 207 views.

Title Distribution

Power of Attorney 10,103

Writing Your Will 9,879

Being an Executor 8,188

A Death in Your Family 6,188

When I’m 64 - Benefits 5,656

Wikibook Title Visits -2015/16

% increase over previous year

Learning About the Law 14,539 128%

Consumer Law² 12,014 35%

A Death in Your Family 7,022 115%

Law-Related Lessons 4,647 207%

Power of Attorney 2,071 217%

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New resources

85 Communities Served Across BC

Our priority each year is to identify law-related topics for which the public needs information and to develop tools to support them. These include easy-to-read print and digital booklets; increasingly we use audio and video to communicate our information. Currently, PLS has 22 titles in publication. To ensure legal accuracy and user confidence in our products, a quarter of these titles are updated each year.

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Continuous improvement

For 20+ years, Justice Theatre has been one of PLS’s most popular programs with students and teachers throughout British Columbia, Western Canada and the North.³ This year, as part of our ongoing effort to improve our resources and services, we identified enhancements to be made to the program. These will be developed and delivered over 2016/17, funding permitting. The changes will include the creation of a curriculum for Justice Theatre, to situate it within a program of learning for secondary level students.

³ In recent years, the Law Foundation of Ontario has supported the delivery of this program to remote locales in British Columbia, Yukon, Northwest Territories and Saskatchewan.

A handbook for teachers’ use has been proposed and will contain:

• A statement of learning objectives

• Lesson plans, with student activities,for pre- and post-theatre learning

• Background materials for teachers

• References to sources ofadditional information

• Evaluation forms and plan

… the regular guy can understand the process.

I thought [Being an Executor] was excellent.

Thank you.

During 2015 we identified an additional resource for improvement: the PLS website. Although print continues to be an important medium for our information, the web has grown in prominence with us as a platform for information delivery. Over the coming year, we will work to improve the organization and curation of resources on our website, to make it easier for users to find and understand the information they need. In this way, we will encourage British Columbians who can and who prefer to use digital resources to obtain them easily over the web. By doing this, our in-person services will be available for those who need them most.

This year, in response to a growing need for resources to help people with their consumer problems, we began to develop a new suite of consumer law resources. Our development process began by listening to our clients: By convening a focus group consisting of users and distributors of our resources—individuals and organizations such as Consumer Protection BC—we identified 40 common consumer law problems. These formed the foundation of a suite of booklets on consumer law, which will be rolled out in 2016/17 and which will replace our existing publication on this topic. Five additional PLS titles were completely updated and revised during 2015: When I’m 64—Benefits; When I’m 64—Services; Power of Attorney; Being an Executor; Writing Your Will. PLS worked closely with BC Centre for Elder Advocacy and Support (BCCEAS) to update the When I’m 64 booklets for legal accuracy.

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• One-hour free classes for the publicon law-related topics

• Justice Theatre presentations and forumsfor schools and communities

• Information and referral services on drop-in basisat PLS’s Vancouver office and by phone and email

Our In-Person Services in 2015-16

The way we deliver these services is as important as the information we provide. Direct contact with the public confers a social value: support to the individual, to enable him/her to build the skills and confidence required to solve problems. And it works both ways: it also enables our staff and volunteers to better understand and respond to the needs facing the public. It builds our knowledge and skills base, too. This in-person contact is what is unique about our service in the BC public legal education sector. Our provincial reach, working through our partner organizations throughout BC, helps us build stronger communities, a stronger public legal education sector and a stronger People’s Law School.

In-person services

“The Justice Theatre plays a key role in delivering timely and relevant topics to school age groups. Their performances are amazing. Teachers and students are often astounded at the impact of the presentation.”

David Baldasso, Vice-principal,Elgin Park Secondary, Surrey

Since 1972, staff and thousands of volunteers have delivered face-to-face services to British Columbians seeking law-related information. We do this in three ways:

We offered 89 law classes throughout BC

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79 Justice Theatre presentations + 10 community forums served 15,731 British Columbians

Our classes helped 3,549 British Columbians better understand laws that affect them

Our staff helped 3,054 clients identify the resources they need to deal with their legal problems and where to go for more help.

96.5% of survey respondents said their knowledge of the legal topic presented at a PLS class was “better” or “much better.”

“[having taken this class, Scams to Avoid], I am now more aware and

will take precautions that I did not use to take…….”

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Developing our Capability

In recent years, PLS experienced staff turnover at all levels, a reflection of funding readjustments in the PLEI sector and changes of management and strategic priorities at PLS. During the summer and fall of 2015, our Board acted decisively to clarify our strategic direction and put in place management with legal training and deep experience in the PLEI sector to drive us toward our goals. This was the first step in strengthening our capability. The second step was completing an organization-wide

People

Systems and technology

FinanceEffective financial analysis and reporting are essential to guide our operating decisions, report to our funders and support our activities to obtain additional sources of funding. Ula Lipska our Finance Manager successfully supported PLS throughout the year with the financial analysis required to enable us to close the year with a balanced budget. As a result of careful cost containment, we did not have to draw down on interest earned on monies held in our Endowment Fund in order to balance our budget.

Throughout the year, we made changes to our systems and technology to support internal collaboration and information exchange and to increase efficiencies:

These changes have also enabled us to improve our reporting capability so that we can better manage information to use in guiding our decisions and communicating with our stakeholders.

• We introduced an intranet, withshared calendars, bulletin board

• We migrated key documents to aGoogle Docs web-based platform

• We began process mappingof mainstream procedures

assessment of the skills, knowledge and attitudes required for PLS to meet its strategic goals and fulfill its mandate. We developed an implementation plan to put in place the findings of our assessment, which we will roll out in 2016/17. The plan sets out how we will achieve the right sets of skills in our organization, and contemplates investment in our people through training and strategic hires. Our People strategy will enable PLS to develop a responsive, effective and inventive organization, capable of managing changes in our sector.

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Strengthening our Sector Ties

In 2016/17 we will work with our PLEI partners to establish the framework and use it to help more people find a way forward through their legal problems. By doing this, we will strengthen the People’s Law School, our sector and—most importantly—help people improve their lives.

During the year, the number of followers of our social media channels (Facebook, twitter and YouTube) remained constant. Our e-newsletter however is our most effective tool to communicate our news and upcoming events. In 2015/16, we redesigned it to make it easier to read across multiple platforms.

Our subscriber list has continued to grow and now exceeds 450 subscribers, with a low opt-out rate and above-industry average number of viewings.

Social media - engaging our users

This year we delivered on our strategic objective to “secure program and project funding to support the public legal information needs of people in BC”. Our core funding from the Law Foundation of BC, the Department of Justice Canada and the Province of British Columbia was stable. In addition, project funding for 2015 exceeded budgeted estimates, thanks to mid-year project grants from the Law Foundation of BC, the Province of BC, and the Department of Justice Canada.

In recent years it has become apparent that the problems facing the public legal education and information sector—and indeed the wider “justice services” sector as a whole—are complex and difficult. No one sector participant acting alone can provide “access to justice”. But sector participants, acting together within a framework of shared goals and observing common “rules of engagement” can bring about change. During 2015, we worked with our PLEI sector partners to collectively develop a framework that will:

• Reflect shared goals that are alignedwith furthering access to justice

• Establish common measurementand evaluation principles

• Clarify each PLEI organizations’ accountabilityto the framework participants

• Demonstrate ways PLEI organizations can worktogether as one access to justice service

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Financial Statements

Our FundersThe People’s Law School enjoys financial support from a range of funders. We thank all of the organizations and individuals who have contributed to us in 2015/16, and we look forward to working with you in future years.

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Staff

Board of Directors

Patricia ByrneExecutive Director

Kathryn McCartPLEI Coordinator

Ula LipskaAccountant

Jaime BurfordPLEI Assistant

Rob McAninch Justice Theatre

Coordinator

Elena RenderosMedia Assistant

(On leave) Above: Rob, Ula, Jaime, Kathryn, Patricia

www.publiclegaled.bc.ca

Our office mascot, Stella.

Amandeep SangheraBarrister & Solicitor

Sanghera Sandhar Law Group

Dean TateBarrister & SolicitorKinsman Law Group

Helen Low, QCBarrister & SolicitorFasken Martineau

Madam Justice Kate KerSupreme Court ofBritish Columbia

Grant ChristoffBarrister & Solicitor

First Nations Health Authority

Joan LetendreBoard Secretary

Notary Public

Tim TimbergBoard Chair

General CounselDepartment of Justice

Hassan El MasriBoard Vice Chair

Notary PublicW. Masri Notary Corporation

Mark WaslenBoard Treasurer

Chartered AccountantMeyers Norris Penny LLP

MaryAnn ReinhardtDesignated Paralegal

RDM Lawyers LLP

People’s Law School - BC @PLSBC PLSBC