The fastest way to get legal aid is to call Legal Aid Ontario toll-free at 1-800-668-8258 Monday to Friday from 8 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. If you are in a correctional facility or use services such as summary legal advice, please call Monday to Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Legal aid is provided throughout the province by lawyers, private members of the Bar Association who work on legal aid certificates, and COMMUNITY law clinics funded by LAO. Coordination between these different methods, other aspects of the justice system and community services is supported by LAO. Public legal information and education is available online at www.legalaid.on.ca and at legal information centres and courthouses across the province. Concern was expressed that this model of mutual legal assistance did not provide sufficient representation of individuals, arguing that the legal issues of low-income clients differed significantly from those of a paying client. Part of this problem was due to a lack of lawyers interested in helping low-income clients with so-called “poverty laws,” which are legal issues dealing with public support, tenant issues, and social rights. [12] The creation of the Community Legal Hospital System was intended to mitigate this problem by providing dedicated resources to low-income Ontarians to help them address these issues. A few years later, these developments fed into the 1978 report of the Clinical Funding Commission,[13] which ultimately played an important role in the formation of the Ontario Legal Aid Plan (OLSP), the forerunner of Legal Aid Ontario. [14] Legal Aid Ontario offers a range of legal services to low-income individuals.
Please visit the Legal Aid website to find out if you are eligible for legal aid and for information on the types of assistance offered by legal aid. Depending on the nature of your legal problem, you may also contact a community legal clinic for assistance. Community Legal Clinics are not-for-profit legal centres funded by Legal Aid Ontario that provide information, legal advice and representation. LAO maintains a second eligibility criterion if an applicant needs a lawyer to represent them. As a general rule, this criterion is reserved only for the most serious cases where the provision of mutual legal assistance by other means alone, such as compulsory assistance or summary legal advice or self-help, would not be sufficient. Those who are eligible for representation will receive a “certificate” that can be used as a voucher to hire a lawyer of their choice who accepts legal aid clients. Lawyers who accept these legal aid certificates are paid directly through Legal Aid Ontario at a rate designed to reflect the fees that would normally be paid by a client with modest funds. In some cases, Ontario Legal Aid clients may be required to reimburse some or all of their hospitality expenses, depending on income. [4] Pro Bono Ontario (CPB) provides free legal advice to individuals who need help with non-family and non-criminal matters and who are not eligible for legal aid. Legal Aid Ontario is helping to fund a network of 76 legal clinics[5] across the province.
These legal clinics offer advice and, in some cases, representation, especially in civil law matters in areas such as: Register online for more information or to find a lawyer. Legal Aid Ontario (LAO) provides legal services at a reduced cost to low-income individuals. Legal Aid Ontario was created in 1998 by the Legal Aid Services Act[3] and succeeds the Ontario Legal Aid Plan (OLP) and provides legal aid to low-income individuals in the Province of Ontario through mandatory counselling, municipal legal clinics, public legal education, summary legal advice, alternative dispute resolution, self-help equipment and legal representation according to the “Judicare” model. Your Legal Rights is a website developed by CLEO that provides legal information to people in Ontario. The website provides information on various legal services in Ontario and also provides information and guidance on a variety of legal topics such as the following: Legal Aid Ontario (LAO) exists to manage a cost-effective and efficient system to provide quality legal services to low-income people in Ontario. Over the next decade, as OLAP grew and the organization increased the number of legal clinics, operating costs began to rise significantly. In the early 1990s and at the height of the recession, OLAP issued more than 200,000 certificates per year, covering a wide range of criminal, family, refugee and other civil claims. At the same time, the number of municipal legal clinics had nearly doubled from 35 a decade earlier to 66, with costs rising from $3.3 million to $22.1 million per year. [15] In the face of a recession, the province responded by freezing funding[16] and reducing the legal aid certificate program by $27.5 million.
This ceiling has led to a sharp decrease in the number of allowances issued; More than 150,000 fewer expenditures were spent between 1994 and 1999. The focus began to be on more cost-effective services such as human resources lawyers, mandatory consultants, and student legal aid societies. Legal clinics also play a major role in providing workshops and information sessions and leading legislative reform initiatives. Many legal clinics also publish brochures, brochures, brochures and fact sheets for the benefit of the public. There is growing concern that Legal Aid Ontario`s financial eligibility criteria are lagging behind not only other provinces, but also below the low-income limit. While the province`s recent efforts are being made to close the gap, for the first time since 1996,[24] it has been calculated that “legal aid eligibility guidelines represent about half of Ontario`s unofficial poverty line, as calculated by Statistics Canada`s Low Income Measure.” [25] To address this, Legal Aid Ontario has committed to raising the eligibility threshold by six per cent each year starting in April 2017 until it reaches the low-income cut-off. [26] The Ministry of Justice also hosts Justice Ontario, a website for questions about Ontario`s legal system. You can call Justice Ontario at 1-866-252-0104 for legal information in more than 170 different languages. LAO determines eligibility for legal aid based on the applicant`s financial situation and whether LAO can provide assistance in resolving the legal issue. To be financially eligible, a person must earn less than the amount shown in the table below for family size. Learn more about filing a complaint through a lawyer or paralegal. The company, which is managed and managed by its Board of Directors, sets policies and priorities for the provision of legal aid services based on its financial resources.
The company advises the Attorney General on all legal aid matters in Ontario. In recent years, and in response to economic, client and government pressures to improve service and reduce costs, LAO has begun to adopt modern approaches to service delivery. Some of these changes included consolidating the province`s offices into nine county offices, developing a toll-free service, sharing information with the Ministry of Community and Social Services for information on eligibility for social assistance, and expanding courthouse services. While the province has contributed to the increase in investment in recent years, a sharp decline in funds from the Law Foundation of Ontario`s trust accounts[20] due to the financial situation in the late 2000s has put additional financial pressure on the organization. To address some of these issues, the Ontario government committed in 2014 to raising licensing thresholds to “give more than one million more people the opportunity to qualify for legal aid services.” [21] However, this increase also resulted in an unexpected and unprecedented increase in demand for legal counsel that went far beyond what Legal Aid Ontario expected. [22] To control rising costs, LAO suspended the implementation of some of the newly expanded services until they were in line with available funding, froze staff salaries and maintained the current level of funding for legal clinics for 2017-2018.