Do you need help with housing, children, crime, social security, benefits, debt, a small business, and other Real People legal matters?
Sometimes you just need to start with one organization, or one website. From there, you’ll find another layer of legal resources and legal assistance referrals, and from there even more – and so on, and so on.
Where to start?
“LAW IN POPULAR CULTURE: Producers seek ‘everyday lawyer’ to host reality TV show,” Mar 10, 2014, by Victor Li
“…. Now, Los Angeles-based production company GRB Entertainment is aiming to bring over a British legal show that gives regular people access to the justice system. GRB is producing an American version of the BBC television show The Legalizer, and is sorely in need of a lawyer who can serve as the host and face of the show. The host’s main duty will be to guide individuals through often difficult and confusing legal processes and discuss their legal options, so that they can stand up for their rights….” [Link to full ABA Journal news article.]
(Oh yes, I have lots to say about this, but sometimes the less said the better.)
The American Bar Association’s Equal Justice Conference (EJC) 2014 will be held in Portland, Oregon.
You may register for a pre-conference session for $75, without having to register for the entire EJC conference!
Among other EJC and pre-conference programs, there is one for Access to Justice (A2J) professionals, public law librarians, and those who are interested public law library or public library legal reference services and A2J (access to justice) issues:
Oregon Landlord-Tenant Law is a lot more complicated than people imagine. Landlords and tenants should seek current and accurate legal information and, in most cases, get professional legal advice from a licensed Oregon attorney who specializes in landlord-tenant law.
Everyone should do this BEFORE trouble strikes.
It’s a lot more expensive to fix a legal problem than it is to prevent one -just ask any landlord-tenant attorney – or any landlord or tenant who thought leases, evictions, and escrow accounts were subject to Common Sense Rules or the If it’s Online it Must Be OK “Rule” instead of the You Have to Research the Actual Law Rule. That person is now paying a lawyer lots of money to fix a problem that might have been avoided – or gnashing teeth over the Unjustness of the World. (Yes, life is sometimes unfair in your favor, but seldom when it comes to landlord-tenant law.)
You still have to resort to the old, not so tried or true, and still time-consuming or expensive methods for locating many Oregon court documents, but that will change over the next few years.
1) By the end of January 2014 these courts will be off OJIN and on eCourt: Benton, Clatsop, Columbia, Crook, Jackson, Jefferson, Linn, Polk, Tillamook, and Yamhill.
2) By the end of 2014: Multnomah, Douglas, Josephine, and Marion circuit courts will be off OJIN and on eCourt.
If you find a “law” on The Internet, doesn’t it mean it’s “The Law?” (hahaha)?
Not everything you read on the Internet is accurate. (I know! Hard to believe, but it’s true!)
Make sure the “law” you find online is accurate and know how to correct and update it if necessary.
The Lessig blog alerts us to the Bing images search feature – and a Commenter compares the ease of the Bing feature with the difficulty of doing a similar search on Google:
From Now On I’m Binging It (Lessig Blog, on Tumbler)
While PACER is way ahead of many state e-court systems, it is still flawed. Enter PacerPro. Give it a whirl, free (for now), and read about it in this article:
From ABA Journal: “Service offers a better way to search federal court records than PACER,” Mar 1, 2014, by Robert Ambrogi.
Lawyer referrals in Oregon are made through the Oregon State Bar and, occasionally, from local or specialized bar associations and nonprofits. (The Oregon State Bar has a public website where you can check to make sure the lawyer is licensed to practice law in Oregon.)
Requests for a referral from the Oregon State Bar are made through email or telephone.
But what happens if you are in jail or prison? Here’s the information we got from the OSB Referral Service:
See the announcements at InfoDocket and at PR Newswire.
