Legal health checks – U.S.
Note to Canadian users: We share the following materials as examples of approaches to legal health checks in other jurisdictions. The legal content in the materials may not be relevant to Ontario or Canadian law and as such should not be distributed in their exact form to your clients. If you wish to adapt any of the tools for your own context, please contact the specific authoring organization.
How’s your legal health? Legal Health Checklist (California), 2006
This is a series of checklists which aims to help people avoid legal problems that could be costly and time-consuming for them down the road. The brochure also provides some general information on “life’s happy and not so happy events”, including tips on keeping important documents and planning for the future.
- Authoring organization: State Bar of California
- Intended users: General public
- Areas screened: Buying a house; when you turn 18; marriage; separation; having a child; adoption; issues for military personnel; debt; signing contracts; resolving legal issues without a lawyer; resolving legal issues with a lawyer; social assistance; health/disability/life insurance; housing; planning; employment; debt/credit
Materials:
- How’s your legal health? (PDF – 13 pages; 17 checklists)
- Authoring organization: Albany Law Clinic & Justice Centre
- Intended users: Clients who visit a law centre at a New York State law school (equivalent to a student legal aid society or SLASS in Ontario)
- Areas screened: Social assistance, health/disability/life insurance, housing, planning, employment, debt/credit
- Legal Checkup (PDF – 2 pages; 6 checklists)
Legal Checkup (New York State – Albany), 2012
This is an intake tool used at a student law centre at the University of Albany. With minimal adaptation, it could be used to give to many clients to fill in themselves, and could be adapted for use by community intermediaries.
Materials
We will update this section with more legal health check materials as they become available. Have you designed or come across any legal health checks or checklists which are not mentioned above? Please contact us.