PLEA gratefully acknowledges our primary core funder the Law Foundation of Saskatchewan for their continuing and generous support of our organization.
PLEA is a non-profit, non-government organization which exists to educate and inform the people of Saskatchewan about the law and the legal system. PLEA differs from a lawyer’s office or a legal aid clinic in that it provides general information on the law rather than legal advice for specific problems.
Knowledge of the law – our rights and responsibilities – is a form of responsible citizenship. Public awareness of, and involvement in, legal issues will increase the effectiveness of our legal system. To this end, PLEA offers a number of services and materials, at no charge.
PLEA’s Request a Speaker program brings a wide range of volunteer lawyers, legal professionals, government personnel and educators into organizations, classrooms, and the community to speak on a variety of law-related topics. Any community group, educator, school, employer, service organization or special interest group, as well as the media, can ask us to help them find a speaker on the law.
PLEA produces publications on many areas of the law and makes these available to the Saskatchewan public at no charge.
PLEA’s Youth and Schools program strives to promote the integration of law-related education into the schools. We develop classroom resources that can be used by teachers to integrate teaching about the law into various areas of the curriculum. These resources are provided to the Saskatchewan public at no charge.
All our resources including publications that explain various areas of the law, classroom resources and newspaper articles are available online at plea.org.
PLEA welcomes requests for general legal information on any topic. If we do not have the information that is needed, we will suggest the appropriate government agency or resource centre where the information may be found.
PLEA is a non-profit, non-government organization funded by the Law Foundation of Saskatchewan and Justice Canada. PLEA also receives generous support from the Saskatchewan Ministry of Justice and Attorney General. PLEA is supported by the Law Society of Saskatchewan, Canadian Bar Association (Saskatchewan Branch), College of Law, Legal Aid Saskatchewan, Ministry of Education, Saskatoon Public Library and the public libraries and regional colleges throughout the province.
If you are unable to attend your scheduled presentation, or if changes to it must be made, please notify both the Coordinator and the PLEA Program Assistant, whose contact information is shown on your confirmation letter, as soon as possible so that we may make alternate arrangements.
PLEA cannot promote particular individuals or firms. Therefore, presenters need to be seen volunteering for a public service and not for private gain. PLEA’s policy is as follows: Volunteer lawyers and other professionals who present information on behalf of PLEA are requested not to promote their services by their own initiative. However, promotional or resource materials may be placed alongside PLEA material and participants may be advised of its availability. Also, a volunteer may give a business card to a participant who requests one. Material produced by the government may be distributed.
Review any recent changes to the law pertaining to your topic. The content of the presentation needs to be up-to-date and accurate.
Review current or controversial issues regarding your topic.
Notify the Coordinator whether you would prefer PLEA supporting materials, if available, to be distributed to the participants before or after the presentation.
Prepare and gather any display items that you may need. See this booklet’s section on Advertising.
Wear clothing that is comfortable, appropriate, and gives a feeling of ease and assurance.
If participants ask questions which are very specific to their personal circumstance, respond only with legal information rather than supplying specific legal advice.
Finish the presentation on time.
After the Presentation
Please fill out the Presenter’s Feedback Form and send it to the PLEA office. Include any suggestions you may have regarding the course outline. Your feedback will help us to improve the Request a Speaker program.
Return to PLEA a copy of any material handed out that was not provided by PLEA.
Keep this booklet on file in your office. For subsequent Request a Speaker presentations, PLEA will simply send you appropriate materials (new course outline, resource materials, and evaluation form).
To engage your participants, it is important to consider what methods will best gain their interest, while understanding that many will have pre-determined needs that they bring to the presentation. What follows are considerations to help make effective presentations alongside considerations regarding the questions that will arise from participants.
People often come to a presentation with specific questions and concerns.
We suggest you briefly review the outline at the beginning of your presentation and ask the audience for any additions or changes according to the subjects or issues uppermost in their minds.
Many participants have little knowledge about the law.
What seems to be elementary to you may not be to them. It is advisable to use simple language and to pay special attention to defining legal terms and jargon.
Lecturing should be as brief as possible and yet reinforce key concepts.
As with any learning activity, participants begin immediately to forget portions of the content, so it is helpful if key points of each section are repeated and summarized at the end of each section.
Participants frequently wish to ask questions during the presentation.
After reviewing the course outline with the participants, explain to them how their questions on the topic will be handled. Questions and answers are more meaningful if relevant to the specific subject under discussion at the time. Therefore, it is usually preferable to permit questions to be posed either during or after each subject in your presentation – rather than to postpone them until the end of the entire presentation. If, however, there are many questions being asked, it may be necessary to answer only a few of them and to defer others until the end of the presentation.
Furthermore, many participants ask questions which are very specific to their personal circumstance. If such questions should arise in your presentation, it is appropriate to respond only with legal information (i.e. a general discussion of the law as it relates to such circumstances), rather than supplying specific legal advice on that particular circumstance. A more generalized response to such questions is in keeping with PLEA’s mandate to provide legal information rather than advice. This approach also permits the other participants to benefit from your response.
Some participants may want further information on the topic than that covered in the presentation.
It is useful to offer suggestions to all participants on how to obtain additional information on the topic – perhaps by reading, writing away for further information, consulting with a lawyer, or visiting the appropriate government agency. Certain participants may prefer to raise issues only with the presenter rather than in the presence of the entire group. We suggest that, if time permits at the conclusion of your presentation, you consider remaining on hand to respond to such issues and questions.
Participants learn more effectively if there are a variety of learning techniques and activities used in a presentation, especially if such techniques involve active participation from the audience.
The following is a list of some simple techniques to consider for your presentation. The nature of your audience and the expected size should be considered in choosing a technique.
Unless otherwise noted, the following techniques are suitable for large or small groups.
Participants respond orally either immediately or after all participants have written down their own answer for themselves.
The presenter outlines a legal case. Participants select or evaluate the court opinion on the basis of their knowledge and ideas about the law.
These are similar to case studies, except that dilemmas involve a non-judicial situation. Participants select and evaluate solutions to a life situation involving the law. Usually, there are pros and cons to each potential solution.
The presenter either poses one or more oral questions to the entire audience, or distributes a question sheet to each participant. A tally of the responses can serve as a basis for discussion.
Suitable for small groups only.
Participants are divided into groups of four to eight people for a given time period. They exchange ideas and opinions on a specific legal topic. The presenter may choose to have each discussion group report back to the whole group.
Participants are given 5 to 10 minutes during the presentation to read a portion of the handout material.
The presenter prepares his or her own PowerPoint slides for use in the presentation.
Depending on the topic, the Saskatchewan Teachers’ Federation and the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission, or the local library may be able to provide the presenter with audiovisual materials to include in the presentation.
PLEA offers free online training on preventing and addressing workplace harassment.