Public Legal Ed in New Brunswick via Twitter
The Public Legal Education and Information Service of New Brunswick (PLEIS-NB), celebrating more than 20 years of service, makes its information pamphlets available online. (Because New Brunswick is a constitutionally bilingual province, there’s a version of the site en français aussi.)
What drew my attention to the site now was the announcement that PLEIS-NB is “helping the public know the law — one tweet at a time!” Of course, advice in 140 characters might be a trifle curt, so they’ve adopted the interesting strategy of tweeting questions, the kind that non-lawyers might ask, and linking those tweets to their longer answers on the site. You can follow them at www.twitter.com/PLEIS_NB (English Updates) or www.twitter.com/SPEIJ_NB (French Updates).
Matters addressed on their site include:
- Abuse and Violence
- Consumer and Non-Profit Law
- Criminal Law
- Family Law
- Going to Court
- Housing & Property
- Planning Ahead
- Self-Help Guides
- You & Your Rights
- Youth & the Law
The legal information is, of course, almost entirely province-specific; however, agencies elsewhere that work directly with the public may well find assistance and inspiration here, and there are matters of general interest discussed that can be helpful everywhere.
I’m glad the information is province specific – we in the small provinces are TOTALLY ignored by the major publishers. If we didn’t have these types of materials, we would have nothing. I wish the publishers would stop being so Ontario-centric.
Great example of creative social media use to serve marginalized communities. Here in Ontario, Community Legal Education Ontario (CLEO) is leading the way with CLEONet, which really pulls together the Community Legal Clinic network of information from across the province, and they’re making big use of social media:
http://twitter.com/CLEONet
http://www.facebook.com/CLEONet.ca
http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=2301276&goback=.gdr_1253118758095_1
including a great webinar series:
http://cleonet.ca/training/
The main CLEONet site is at:
http://cleonet.ca/
@Sue, there are local public legal education networks in most provinces:
http://www.cleo.on.ca/english/links.htm#2