Peggy Revell
Touting greater efficiency and better service, Legal Aid Ontario (LAO) is amalgamating the district’s Legal Aid services into a larger region.
Legal Aid offices within Rainy River District now will become part of the Northwest District in the Northern Region, with the Thunder Bay office to serve as the “district hub” and “support clinics, panel lawyers, and duty counsel, manage client services, and build partnerships with justice sector partners,” Jennifer Carten, who will oversee services in the Northwest District as the area’s director, said by e-mail last week.
In-person access to Legal Aid services is being moved from its current location—situated alongside the Northwest Community Legal Clinic above the Northern Lights Credit Union here—to the Fort Frances Courthouse, where it will be accessible on court days.
Clients also will continue to have access to duty counsel provided by Legal Aid Ontario in the Ontario Court of Justice in Fort Frances and Rainy River, Carten noted.
“We recognize the local Legal Aid office plays an important role in delivering services, and we are committed to maintaining a Legal Aid presence in Fort Frances,” she stressed.
“Having an office at the courthouse is a convenient way to assist people when and where they need information or help with a Legal Aid application,” she remarked.
“Experience shows that delays often occur when criminal defendants or family law litigants have to travel from court to a Legal Aid office and then back again,” Carten added.
“If the LAO office is just down the hall, they can leave and be back quickly.”
Carten also said Legal Aid will continue its “close liaison” with the Northwest Community Legal Clinic—which remains in its current location—to “support seamless client services for residents of Fort Frances.”
“We are working with the staff in Fort Frances to ensure a smooth transition for clients as the changes take place over the coming weeks and months,” Carten said.
But Carten declined to comment on exactly what these moves and changes mean for the local jobs with Legal Aid.
“As we move forward with transformation and expanding client access points, the area offices will see some change to their structure and role,” she conceded.
“The functions of some positions will change, some positions will no longer be required, and some new positions will be needed.
“LAO’s policy is to keep employee status confidential out of respect for the privacy of our staff members during this period of transition,” Carten said.
LAO also is emphasizing the services which it now provides over the phone to the public, by calling toll-free 1-800-668-8258 and pressing ‘0.’
This service is available Monday to Friday from 8 a.m.-5 p.m., and can be accessed in more than 120 languages, including 18 aboriginal ones.
“This means clients can access more services than previously available at a Legal Aid office, including a referral to other services, complete an application, and summary legal advice for eligible clients,” Carten said of LAO’s telephone services.
“Our clients are telling us they prefer the convenience of doing applications, asking for assistance, or checking information from their own home,” she noted.
“They don’t want to have to travel to an office if they don’t have to,” she added, citing that for people in rural and remote areas in the northwest, getting to the Legal Aid office is difficult, especially when many of their clients don’t have a car.
But others are doubtful about these changes having a positive impact for the district.
“This change is going to mean not an increase [in services]—this is going to mean a decrease in services to my clientele and any clientele that is on a reduced income,” charged La Vallee Reeve Emily Watson, a local court outreach worker for the Canadian Mental Health Association.
“So the poorest of the poor are once again having services taken away from them,” she said.
These changes are such a “major concern” that Watson will be bringing the issue up this Saturday at the annual general meeting of the Rainy River District Municipal Association.
While LAO states there will be an in-person access during court days, Watson said this has not been confirmed and is doubtful this service will remain.
“It’s only recently that the person from Legal Aid has moved into the courthouse and been there available first appearance to help these people, and it has really improved the flow through our local court,” she noted.
“But taking this away, this is a huge step backwards,” she warned.
Currently when a person goes to court for their first appearance, a person from Legal Aid is right there to help them fill out their application, tell them exactly what is needed, and work with that person to get all of the information together to make their application, Watson explained.
“Are they expecting that duty counsel now will be doing the Legal Aid applications? I don’t think so,” she said. “We’re already having some issues with duty counsel refusing to do all but the most serious cases because of the pittance that they are paid.
“So if you’re asking them to do additional work for the money that they’re receiving, I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
Watson also was skeptical about the switch to accessing LAO services through the 1-800 number as clients still will have to send information by e-mail, fax, or by mail.
“And you know, some of these people don’t have access to fax machines, they have no access to a computer, and being on a limited income, they’re not going to have the money to be able to pay for things to go in the mail,” she noted.
“So it’s going to back up the court system, things are going to slow down,” she added. “Instead of having an immediate application taken on a first appearance, there’s no telling how long this is going to take now.”
Those at the local Legal Aid office also have a lot of input into local committees, Watson said.
“Things like Justice On Target, victim services, all of those kind of community input, those are going to be gone,” she warned.
“Our local committee makes decisions about whether or not a person can receive Legal Aid or not,” she explained, referring to another drawback of the amalgamation.
“And so if this is a decision now that’s going to be done now by a committee in Thunder Bay, it’s going to take longer because that’s going to add to their workload, and it’s just not a good move.”
These types of changes proposed by LAO also have been happening in other areas across the province, said Sue Hanson, who sits on the board for the Northwest Community Legal Clinic (which is considered separate from the Legal Aid office).
In these other areas, clients seem to be happy when it comes to ease of access in having the Legal Aid office located at the courthouse, she noted.
“[But] as far as having the office only open on court days, that could be problematic for people,” she admitted.
There are both pros and cons with the changes to Legal Aid services, agreed Donna Kroocmo, executive director with the Rainy River District Women’s Shelter of Hope (formerly the Atikokan Crisis Centre), with one “pro” being the ease of access in having the LAO office located at the courthouse.
“My thought on it is it’s never a good thing when we lose local autonomy, that’s never a good thing,” Kroocmo argued, noting that those working at the local office have some decision-making authority, as well as good knowledge about such things as geography and the availability of Legal Aid lawyers in the district.
“If that’s lost, that’s definitely not good for our clients,” she stressed, explaining that she worries that whoever in Thunder Bay won’t be as knowledgeable about the district as the local representatives are.
The current process for accessing Legal Aid has been good according to the women whom the shelter assists, said Kroocmo. The bigger issue has been the shortage of lawyers willing to take on Legal Aid cases.
In the “Transforming our Communities” report released in May, 2009 by the Domestic Advisory Council for Ontario’s Minister Responsible for Women’s Issues, it was noted that “the number of lawyers participating in the family law certificate system dropped by 29 percent over the past decade, largely because of the low hourly rate and maximum number of hours allowed on family law certificates.”
Meanwhile, many lawyers practising in criminal law across the province have been boycotting Legal Aid, citing the Ontario government’s imposed billing caps and low hourly rates.
As of this Monday, the McGuinty government reached an agreement with the Criminal Lawyers’ Association to end the boycott, and announced reforms to Legal Aid that includes an investment of $150 million into the system.
Others involved with the local justice system could not be reached for comment prior to press time, or declined to comment due to a lack information on the changes in Legal Aid.
