Province Moves Forward With Legal Aid Transformation

Ontario is transforming the province's legal aid system, to help ensure that Ontarians have access to the legal services they need, regardless of their ability to pay, and to drive reforms in the family and criminal courts.

Over the past four months, the government has engaged legal aid service providers and legal organizations and established five advisory groups to focus on how the $150 million investment could best support Legal Aid Ontario's clients and help drive substantial court reforms.

Ontario has reached an agreement with the Criminal Lawyers' Association to end the boycott of large criminal cases in Ontario.

The government will be moving on:

• Allocating additional funding for enhanced family law and poverty law services
• Instituting block fees for standard criminal cases
• Providing greater quality control and ensuring greater accountability of legal aid lawyers
• Increasing the hourly fees for criminal, family, immigration and refugee and mental health lawyers by an average of 5 per cent per year for the next seven years
• Increasing legal aid fees for expert defence witnesses, and
• Implementing the Code and Lesage recommendation of creating enhanced fees for highly qualified lawyers who work on the most complex major criminal cases.

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