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Writer's pictureJohn Piszczek

Legal aid in the province will see a 30% cut


The majority Ford government announced huge cuts to funding for Legal Aid Ontario.


I haven’t been a lawyer long enough to wear silk robes yet but I have met a lot of people in the last decade who informed me about the history of legal aid funding. Between every government change came either huge funding or huge cuts leading to an expansion or contraction of legal aid services. Reminds me of the stock market.


The challenging aspect for LAO will be to continue providing all the services after huge expansion including increased legal aid financial eligibility. It can’t.


I continue to do legal aid work and I used to work for the organization myself. A humbling experience, we laughed at our “offices” which were nothing more than a family court child-play room or closets turned into offices. I didn’t care though; we were there to fight the power and stick up for the little guy. The problem was that the obvious lack of resources lead to disregard of the duty counsel profession.


“I want to talk to a real lawyer, not duty counsel” was the one that made us laugh the most. Funny because we heard it in bail court and I think my running record was 1 bail loss in an entire year as duty counsel. Like I said, I do it for the wins. Because losing sucks and it ruins my day and my client’s life.


Anyways, I’m getting carried away. We were talking about the budget. We are where we are now and crying now ain’t gonna bring back the $130 million. Also, people don’t usually vote for public money for alleged criminals.


What legal aid needs to do is get rid of the middle management. I didn‘t need 3 managers when I was a supervising lawyer. I needed one. Stop hiring non-lawyers and focus on the service legal aid Ontario is mandated to provide: courtroom legal representation.


Another good entity to follow is PPSC aka the federal crown. They have staff lawyers in large city centres and then they provide agents in smaller towns. Maybe that is a good example to follow: that is, hiring a firm on a 5 year contract that will provide all the legal aid services in that jurisdiction. If they suck, yank the contract. Competition is healthy.


We we will see what happens but 30% will be a blood bath and will see job cuts. My heart goes out to the families that will be affected and now is the time to start planning plan b.

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