Native Counseling Services of Alberta has a how-to brochure produced by lawyers on how to go about getting a lawyer and proceeding with a lawsuit against residential schools. 2000 Merchant Law Group represents approximately half of residential school victims with clients across Canada and many clients from the United States who were victims of the Canadian Residential Schools. Most of the litigation has been launched and is proceeding in Western Canada where First Nations people largely reside. New victims are coming forward regularly and Claims are being launched. The BC Trial system is at least as slow as the slowest in Canada.
Trials tend to be set a year plus in advance.
On Trials that have been set, Tony Merchant will be handling case management meetings with the Trial Judges in May, June and July on individual cases. Alberta The Court of Queen's Bench has been persuaded to deal in case management with all cases together. This is unfair to victims and is delaying the process. Merchant Law Group lawyers, Tim Turple, Mike Mantyka, Tom Stepper, and others, are meeting with other Plaintiffs' lawyers on May 10th with a proposal concerning a series of Trials to be handled during 2000. The plan is to run 30 to 50 test Trials to establish precedents in the hope that that will lead to settlements of other cases.