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Know Your Rights at the Door

Name: Know Your Rights at the Door
Price: 8.99 USD
Availability: InStock
Rating: 4.8 (4 reviews)
Author: Adrian Vale

by Adrian Vale · published via Smithbook

What you can say, what you can refuse and who to call when the police are on your front step. Written for real people, in real words.

★★★★★ 4.8 · 4 reviews 59 readers English

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★★★★★

"I have tried to read legal books before and gave up. This one reads like a friend explaining it over coffee."

pau•••@readers.staging.smithbook.test · verified reader

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What it covers

Canadian lawCharter rightspoliceplain language

About this book

Most people meet the criminal law for the first time in a doorway, half awake, with no idea what they are allowed to say. Halifax defence lawyer Adrian Vale explains the basics in plain words: the right to stay silent, the right to a lawyer, when police need a warrant to come inside, and what to do in the first hour after an arrest. General information, not legal advice, and a calm place to start before you pick up the phone.

Look inside · First chapter

It is almost always late. You hear the knock, you look through the glass, and there are two officers on the step. Your heart is loud in your ears and your brain goes quiet. This chapter is about the first thirty seconds, because the first thirty seconds are where most people say something they later wish they had not. You do not have to open the door fully to talk. You can speak through it, or open it on the chain. You can ask who they are, why they are there and whether they have a warrant. Tho

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Product details

Title: Know Your Rights at the Door
Author: Adrian Vale
Format: Digital · browser reader
Language: English
Category: Law & Legal
Delivery: In seconds · to your e-mail
Access: Lifetime · any device
Publisher: Independent · via Smithbook

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Reviews

4.8

★★★★★

4 reviews

5★3

4★1

3★0

2★0

1★0

★★★★★ · pau•••@readers.staging.smithbook.test9/30/2026

No jargon

I have tried to read legal books before and gave up. This one reads like a friend explaining it over coffee.

★★★★☆ · oli•••@readers.staging.smithbook.test9/30/2026

Useful and honest

He keeps saying ask a lawyer, which is fair. The chapter on warrants is the best part.

★★★★★ · ned•••@readers.staging.smithbook.test9/29/2026

Gave a copy to my son

He is nineteen and thinks he knows everything. He read the whole thing and asked me good questions after.

★★★★★ · mon•••@readers.staging.smithbook.test9/29/2026

Wish I had read it last year

Clear, short and calm. I finally understand the difference between being detained and being arrested.

About the author

Adrian Vale

I have practised criminal defence in Halifax for seventeen years, most of it in the provincial court on Spring Garden Road, where the coffee is bad and the stakes are not. The same questions come to me every week, usually at two in the morning, usually from someone standing in a hallway with a police officer at the door. So I started writing the answers down in words a tired person can follow. Nothing I write is legal advice for your situation. It is a map, so you know which questions to ask. I live in the North End with my partner, two teenagers and a rowing machine I use as a coat rack.

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