Two stress leaves and sale of the family home was the toll for a Comox woman
A middle-income earner who didn’t qualify for legal aid, the 51-year-old mother of two initially hired a lawyer, but soon ran out of money and became a self-represented litigant.Start your day with a roundup of B.C.-focused news and opinion delivered straight to your inbox at 7 a.m., Monday to Friday.By clicking on the sign up button you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc.
While the rate of self-representation for all cases dipped slightly in the B.C. provincial court last year, the number of self-represented court appearances increased by seven per cent. Robert Bauman, chief justice of the B.C. Court of Appeal chairs Access to Justice B.C., a group dedicated to addressing access to justice issues as self-represented litigants.Research by the National Self-Represented Litigants Project has found that most people self-represent because they can’t afford to pay for legal services and do not qualify for legal aid. Many begin their cases with lawyers but at some point become unable to spend any more on legal expenses.
At the time she was earning about $62,000 a year and did not qualify for legal aid as the threshold then for legal aid for her was about $26,000, she said. The decision to sell her home came in the winter of 2020 when she was off work on the second of two stress leaves and her finances were stretched.
Jennifer Muller, another self-represented litigant, also initially had a lawyer but costs for her custody and child support case escalated to about $50,000 in the first four months, making it untenable to continue with a lawyer. “But I ended up having to go back 10 years later once again as a self-represented litigant in 2019 and 2020.”Article content
Unbundling allows a person to hire a lawyer at an hourly rate. It’s a service that some, but not all lawyers, offer.
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