Karen Fallis works on the assembly line at the Chrysler plant in Brampton, Ont., bolting on seat belts and “doing the same thing 500 times a day.” A single mother with two kids, her free time—not to mention disposable income—is in short supply. So when Fallis found herself embroiled in a legal dispute with her ex over child support payments, she was relieved that she belonged to the Canadian Auto Workers Union: CAW members have had access to a legal services plan for over 20 years. Just as health insurance covers medical bills, this type of coverage pays for lawyers.

Fallis called up the CAW Legal Services Plan, a law firm where lawyers work directly for individual members, not for the car companies or the union itself, and handle everything from property deals to litigation. (For family law cases like Fallis’s, the plan covers 12 hours of a lawyer’s time; after that, members pay a reduced rate of $110 an hour, about half what the average lawyer charges.) After a legal battle that lasted over a year and eventually went to trial, Fallis came away with a result she was happy with. It wouldn’t have happened, she says, without the coverage. “I just wouldn’t have been able to do it financially. I would have bowed down, and regretted it,” Fallis says. “Money is a huge issue when you’re talking about lawyers.”

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