Untangling our tangled legal web

Can’t make sense of the Family Court changes? Housing New Zealand giving you (or your clients) the run-around? Work and Income refusing to follow their own policy manual?

No idea where to start? We’ve done the hard work for you. Order your Community Law Manual 2014-15 now.

In July 2014 we’ll be releasing the latest edition of the Community Law Manual, our trail-blazing resource that helps Kiwis (and their advocates) help themselves. Order your copy now to ensure you have the latest and the best tools to untangle the ever-changing legal web around us.

Family Law changes
We’ve completely re-written our family law information in light of the government’s new “family dispute resolution” process. Independent lawyers and advocates confirm that, unlike other information about these changes available online and in print, the Community Law Manual is “fabulous”, “clear” and “straight-forward”, but that it does not “over-simplify” or dodge the difficult questions. And it’s all in one place.

Changes to social housing
For the first time, the Community Law Manual will contain information about social housing, to help you or your clients work through problems and enforce your rights with Housing New Zealand and the new MSD housing service.

Stay up-to-date with everything else
We’ve overhauled our information about employment and the new consumer laws, and we’ve renovated our chapters on Māori land, benefit rights, legal aid and the law about charities and community groups.

New online portal
The Community Law Manual is available for free online. Our website attracts nearly one million hits a year, up from half a million around the time of our 2012 launch. We’ve been busy giving our digital face a makeover. Check out our new web portal here: www.communitylaw.org.nz/community-law-manual. The website features inspiring photography by Himiona Grace (director of the brilliant new Kiwi movie, “The Pā Boys”). By revitalising our online presence, we reckon we’re making ourselves even more accessible for clients and their advocates, who sometimes don’t know where to begin amid the sticky web of lawyers, legal letters and legal institutions.

How do we do this, year after year?
All this has been made possible through a generous grant from Lotteries; ongoing funding from the Ministry of Justice; hundreds of volunteer hours; and a dedicated Community Law team working round the clock to keep up with the pace of fundamental law change in New Zealand. However, we also rely heavily on book sales, which keep the Community Law Manual alive.

By buying a copy of the Community Law Manual, you are directly contributing to a fairer, more accessible justice system, and to better results for people with less. (You are of course also getting a hard copy of the Community Law Manual, a good-looking and very useful book to have at hand when you, your family, or people you work with need some help. And you are improving the chances that we can continue to make this information available, next year and beyond.)

This edition of the Community Law Manual confirms our commitment to providing the best information about areas of the law where there’s no money for lawyers but a lot is at stake. Community Law is the leading provider of free, trustworthy, plain-English legal information in New Zealand. We are also the only Aotearoa-wide provider of quality-assured free legal help. Check us out here: www.communitylaw.org.nz.

Big discounts for NGOs

We are committed to making the Community Law Manual the most widely used plain English resource in Aotearoa. For this reason we have re-visited our pricing structure and have decided to make some manuals available at cost price. We are now offering the Community Law Manual at half price, for NGOs that order 10 or more copies:

$150 each (government and commercial agencies) = full price
$100 each (NGOs and individuals) = 33% discount
$75 each (NGOs bulk ordering 10 copies or more) = 50% discount… half price!

ends

© Scoop Media