Employment Opportunities
Closing Date: March 31, 2010, 5:00 pm

Law Help Ontario (Ottawa)

Full Time Triage Coordinator - Bilingual (English & French)

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Part Time Triage Coordinator (English & French)

Pro Bono Law Ontario (PBLO) is a registered charity with a mandate to improve access to justice by creating and facilitating opportunities for lawyers to provide free legal services to low income Ontarians. One priority area for the organization is low-income unrepresented litigants with civil (non-family) matters. PBLO manages a suite of projects dedicated to their needs, including Law Help Ontario, which operates out of three court-based help centres.

These centres provide a combination of self-help resources and pro bono duty counsel services on a walk-in basis. Services available include:
• Procedural information
• Form completion assistance
• Summary advice
• Representation at trials, hearings and settlement conferences
• Referrals to additional resources

Duties:

The Triage Coordinator will assist in the day-to-day operations of Law Help Ontario.

Your Duties will include

• Manage and, as necessary, perform all triage-related work including welcoming clients, assessing client eligibility for assistance based on PBLO's policies and procedures, managing expectations respecting wait times, receiving and filing completed application forms, directing clients to appropriate stream of assistance and ensuring case disposition forms are completed by volunteer lawyers.
• Facilitate access to public use computers and automated document assembly programs.
• Manage volunteer duty counsel, which includes communicating updates and changes to project procedures, inviting and considering duty counsel suggestions for improved operations, entertaining special requests from duty counsel, and assistance with scheduling duty counsel appearances.
• Make referrals to existing legal information and resources (PBLO publications, websites, MAG, Legal Aid, Lawyer Referral Service, etc.
• Support Law Help Live (online chatting) as required
• Administrative support by maintaining electronic and paper records
• After sufficient experience is acquired, train and provide ongoing support to volunteer lawyers, students and paralegals.
• Consider, suggest and help implement methods of imparting general legal information to a broader range of the target demographic, such as seminars, videos, presentations and website content.

Qualifications:

• Graduation from an approved paralegal training program, law clerk program, or equivalent;
• Eligibility for licensing as a paralegal under Law Society of Upper Canada's licensing scheme, or a recipient of ILCO's law clerk certificate;
• At least two years' experience as a paralegal, court clerk or law clerk;
• Good working knowledge of computers and typing skills (Windows, word processing, email systems, Internet research);
• Customer service orientation.
• Ability to work independently using initiative, tact, diplomacy and sound judgment.
• Ability to communicate effectively - orally and in writing - with a variety of stakeholders including the legal profession, the judiciary, government agencies and the general public.
• Ability to communicate effectively with a broad diversity of users who may be difficult, upset, or demanding.
• Effective interviewing and probing skills in trying to determine the scope of issues facing unrepresented litigants.
• A sound understanding and application of the principles governing the provision of legal information as opposed to legal advice.

These positions have been filled.