What is CASL?
The Community Advocate Support Line (CASL) is a poverty law legal support service exclusively for community-based advocates in BC. It is operated by the Community Legal Assistance Society (CLAS) and is funded by the Law Foundation of BC.
CASL is staffed by two full-time lawyers. The CASL lawyers support the work that advocates do by offering advocates legal information, legal advice, and training on various poverty law issues, including:
- welfare law (including income and disability assistance),
- residential tenancy and other housing issues,
- employment standards and employment insurance,
- Canada Pension Plan (including disability benefits),
- Old Age Security and Guaranteed Income Supplement, and
- debts, debt collection, and consumer contracts.
Advocates can contact CASL for legal advice or support about a specific case. The CASL lawyers are also active on various PovNet lists for advocates and often provide legal support there.
Training
Advocates also receive education, training, and information about resources through CASL. CASL hosts monthly online workshops for advocates and regularly presents sessions at the Law Foundation of BC’s annual Provincial Advocacy Training Conference (PATC).
Online workshops
CASL presents online workshops, including substantive legal workshops and warm referral workshops.
Our warm referral workshop series spotlights a different legal service organization or program in BC every month. Through these workshops, advocates meet with staff from different legal service providers and learn when and how to make appropriate referrals to them. Workshops to date have featured the work of the Tenant Resource and Advisory Centre (TRAC), Disability Alliance BC (DABC), and the BC First Nations Justice Council (BCFNJC), among others.
Systemic advocacy
CASL also participates in consultations and committees with various Ministries and Tribunals to address some of the operational, policy, and systemic difficulties encountered by advocates in their casework.
Interested in CASL’s services?
If you are a community-based advocate employed by an agency and you would like to learn more about the CASL program, or see if you are eligible for our workshops and/or legal advice services, please email [email protected] with a brief description of yourself and the work you do. You will receive a response as soon as possible, usually within 3 business days.
[Last updated: March 2025]