Technical Stuff
Every Canadian province has an agency which dishes out legal aid referrals to private lawyers, or through a centralized group of lawyers. Each province has different scopes of services.
British Columbia's is a good example as it has recently evolved to limit assistance to few but the most needy. For example, in family law cases, violence or child protection must now be at issue - a new requirement for legal aid.
Since 1979, the BC legal aid program has been administered by the "Legal Services Society" under the auspices of the Legal Services Society Act (Chapter 30 of the 2002 Statutes of British Columbia).
This independent agency structure is typical of legal aid programs, such as Legal Aid Ontario.
The Society is an independent, non-profit organization that reports to the BC Legislature. The provincial government is the primary funding source although a portion is also received from the federal government and, in varying amounts, the Law Foundation and the Notary Foundation.
The Society is now required to balance its budget and may not incur a deficit without the permission of the provincial Attorney General and the Minister of Finance.
The Society is directed by a 9-member board of directors appointed as follows:
- Law Society of British Columbia appoints 4 members; and
- the provincial Attorney General appoints 5 members.
As of May 14, 2007, according to the LSS website, four members of the Board were lawyers.
The Society is under a statutory duty to " to assist low income individuals to resolve their legal problems and facilitate access to justice for low income individuals".
Who/What Qualifies?
Specifically, the Act says that legal services should be made are available for a "qualifying individual" who:
- is a defendant in criminal proceedings that could lead to the individual's imprisonment;
- may be imprisoned or confined through civil proceedings;
- is or may be a party to a proceeding respecting a domestic dispute that affects the individual's physical or mental safety or health or that of the individual's children;
- has a legal problem that threatens
- the individual's family's physical or mental safety or health,
- the individual's ability to feed, clothe and provide shelter for himself or herself and the individual's dependents, or
- the individual's livelihood.
To put that into plain language, and generally speaking:
- There's a dual-qualification criteria: your legal problem must qualify and your income must be below certain levels.
- While the threshhold for eligibility changes from time to time, as of April 2006, it was, generally, for a household of three, a "net monthly income" of $2,427.
- Legal Aid may also deny coverage based on assets if they are of a substantial value.
- As to the type of 'legal' problem covered, and again generalized for the sake of this article, Legal Aid covers only criminal cases where imprisonment is a possibility and in rtegards to family law issues, if there is a violence or child protection component.
In some cases, you may receive legal aid but it will not be completely free; you may be asked to pay a small user fee called a "contribution" (between $25 and $100). This will be the case if your income is higher than BC Benefits rates.
You are under an ongoing obligation to inform the Society of any advantageous changes in your income. This is because if your finances improve such that you exceed the limits for legal aid, you may suddenly be responsible for paying your lawyer. In cases where you receive a monetary settlement or you are successful in obtaining and enforcing a court order, you may be asked to pay the legal aid office back for part or all of the money it has paid your lawyer.
The Society investigates complaints received from legal aid clients about their lawyers or about legal aid delivery. I have often been involved in family law cases where eligibility for legal aid has been a substantial issue because once a legal aid retainer has been issued, there is less of a financial incentive to settle. Correspondingly, a litigant paying for a lawyer out of his/her own pocket can quickly be beaten into (financial) submission by legal initiatives subsidized by a legal aid-financed litigant.
Some Final words....
Assuming that the applicant has all required information, the application is accepted or rejected fairly quickly.
If you are eligible for legal aid and if a registered lawyer has been identified on the application, the lawyer will be contacted and may be tendered a referral form. If you have not selected a registered lawyer on your application form, you may be referred to a local lawyer with an expressed interest or experience in the field of law in which you need legal services.
The lawyer then provides legal services to you but legal bills and is paid by the Society, in accordance with detailed rate tables as set out in binders published by the Legal Services Society head office. As of April 2006, that rate is about $80 an hour.
If your application for a legal aid referral is rejected, you are entitled to appeal the decision.
The program has been under political scrutiny since its inception. Many lawyers and law society groups have complained about the recent reduction of public funding for legal aid in British Columbia as well as delays in receiving payment from the Society. Neither is supposed to affect the level or timeliness of legal services provided to you.
It seems to me that, because this is a publicly funded service, subordination to political decision comes with the territory. However, some lawyers and special interest groups argue that reduction in funding for legal aid has resulted in some disadvantaged persons being denied access to legal representation.
Other criticisms include comments that the level of income required to qualify means that only the very poor can benefit from the program, leaving the population in low to mid-range income range unable to afford prohibitive private legal fees; and that funding should not be provided to provide free defence counsel for repeat criminals, regardless of income.
Researched and written by Lloyd Duhaime as a free public service. Any opinions expressed are solely those of Mr. Duhaime.
Warning: This information is not legal advice. Provincial laws and regulations or Legal Services Society or Law Centre policies, procedures or forms can change at any time, and with little or no notice. Therefore, this information, while believed to be accurate on May 14, 2007, can only be provided without warranty of any kind.
Click here to visit the official web site of the BC Legal Services Society.