Law Times

Law Times • November 15, 2010 NEWS LAO execs address lawyers' concerns at CLA conference through reassurances that the private bar is at the heart of its plans for the future. John McCamus, chairman of LAO's board of directors, and Bob Ward, its president and CEO, stepped into the bear pit last week at the Criminal Law- yers' Association's fall conference in downtown Toronto. Th is time last year, the CLA decided to expand the legal aid boycott as the bitter dispute reached a fevered pitch. Since then, clashes over late pay- ments and suspicion about ser- vice cuts have kept relations on edge, but McCamus moved to calm criminal defence lawyers' most extreme fears. "Some people feel we have some kind of secret plan to implement a public defender system," he said. "Read my lips: there is no such plan. We have no such intention. We believe in the mixed system we have, and all plans we work with assume that will continue to be the case." As McCamus noted, the re- cession wiped $50 million off LAO's Law Foundation of On- tario revenues, which created a stressful time for its staff . Still, he noted that unlike other le- gal aid programs, LAO hasn't reduced its eligibility limits. In fact, when interest rates fi nally begin to increase, thereby boost- ing law foundation revenue to LAO, there will be reason for optimism, McCamus said. "Th ere are lots of cases that fall No plans for public defender system: McCamus L BY MICHAEL McKIERNAN Law Times egal Aid Ontario has at- tempted to calm the fears of criminal lawyers outside of the existing crite- ria that are meritorious where people need access to a lawyer, and we want to be able to do that in future," he said. "We want to cover more matters; we want to serve more clients; we want more access to justice." But Louis Strezos, chairman of the CLA's legal aid commit- tee, pointed out that LAO's fi - nancial cut-off hasn't changed since the 1990s. It stands at around $13,000 and erodes every year thanks to infl ation. Strezos said the memoran- dum of understanding that halted the boycott and was signed earlier this year by the CLA, LAO, and the Ministry of the Attorney General sig- nalled a new foundation for his organization's relationship with legal aid. "Th e days of our membership supplementing le- gal aid are done," he said. "Th e CLA will continue to advocate the fundamental requirement of proper legal aid funding to ensure access to justice." Ward, calling the fi nancial cut-off "unconscionably low," agreed that eligibility is an issue. Still, he hailed LAO's new client service centre, which he said has increased access to services, espe- cially in rural areas where trans- portation is limited. Ward also attempted to soothe fears about the expansion of the duty counsel program. Th e ma- jority of duty counsel are actually members of the private bar, he noted, adding that a signifi cant proportion of their work is in aid of other defence lawyers. "So the notion of duty counsel be- ing some kind of external alien force relative to the interest of the Bennett Jones wins big B Marlys Edwardh worries the inadequacy of legal aid will translate into public disillusionment with the role of criminal defence counsel. private bar is something I'd urge you to reconsider," Ward said. He also said approval rates for legal aid applications have increased to 87 per cent from 80 per cent. Th at includes a rise in same-day approved ap- plications to 74 per cent from 65 per cent, all of which is evi- dence, according to Ward, that LAO is committed to the pri- vate bar's role in legal aid. But Beth Bromberg, a law- yer from Hamilton, Ont., said acceptance rates are misleading because many people don't want to waste their time applying for legal aid after counsel tell them they probably won't be eligible. As well, she said she has had particular diffi culty represent- ing clients with mental illnesses on legal aid given that their cases take much longer than she can bill for. While in the past she could get an exception through a doctor's explanation of the cli- ent's problems, that's no longer possible. In one case, she was paid for eight hours of work after guiding the client through two fi tness hearings and a treatment order before he pleaded guilty to a breach of probation. "It probably took about 35 hours to represent him properly," Bromberg said. "Th e next time a client came around, I thought about my grocery bill and my three children and I had to say no. But ethically, I feel I should be taking those clients." Giving the annual John Sopinka memorial lecture at the conference, Marlys Edwardh mourned the erosion of legal aid eligibility and funding in the 34 years since her call to the bar. "Nobody was going to get rich on a ticket, but defence counsel were meaningfully remuner- ated for work we did," she said. "Despite the inspired and con- certed eff orts of this organiza- tion, legal aid remains woefully inadequate." Edwardh noted she worries that the inadequacy of legal aid will translate into public disil- lusionment with the system and the role of criminal de- fence counsel more generally. "Systemic funding of legal aid sends a message that we are the least valuable partici- pants in the criminal justice system," she said. Edwardh also criticized the increased use of mandatory minimum sentences, which in her view reduce judicial discretion while jeopardizing off enders' chances of rehabilita- tion. "We have arrived at a period of profound retrenchment where we struggle even to preserve the gains we have previously won and where defence counsel are painted as frustrating rather than fostering access to justice and the rule of law," she said. "We are confronted today with a desper- ately cynical politics that seeks to infl ame and harness public fear and anxiety in the service of a law-and-order agenda." Nevertheless, Edwardh said the legal aid boycott helped to put access to justice on the agen- da. "We need to continue to shift that debate. I believe we have be- gun to do so. Th ere is a growing suspicion that a law-and-order agenda won't get us very far. But there remains a great deal of work to be done." LT Looking for new business leads? an enhanced listing on Looking for new business leads? an enhanced listing on ennett Jones LLP has become the fi rst law fi rm to win an international award for intranet design. Th e fi rm came in fi rst at the 2010 Intranet Innova- tion Awards, winning the platinum award for its intranet sys- tem called BenNet. Bennett Jones' chairman and CEO Hugh MacKinnon is hailing the achievement. "Th is is a remarkable honour and a testament to the fi rm's commitment to create and foster a highly effi cient and collaborative work environment, ultimately resulting in providing the highest standard of service to our clients," he said. Step Two Designs, an Australian fi rm specializing in intranets and content management, established the awards four years ago. Th is year, it accepted 55 entries from around the world, but Alex Manchester, a senior consultant at Step Two, said BenNet stood out for the classifi cation system that powers its legal precedents database. "We've seen law fi rms struggle with the underlying is- sue here and believe it is something many peer fi rms will want to implement to augment their own precedents databases." 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Th e fi rm will pick up the award at the KMWorld Confer- ence in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 17. — MM CLL enhance_list CL.indd 1 www.lawtimesnews.com CLL Enhanced - LT 1/4 pg.indd 1 CLL enhance_list CL.indd 1 CANADIANLAWLIST.com works f CANADIANLAWLIST.com works for you! ou! Get an enhanced listing on enhanced listing on www.canadianlawlist.com. It's Canada's popular and reliable online network legal community, bringing thousands of lawyers together with clients each year. With an enhanced listing on www.canadianlawlist.com, you'll stand out to an expansive Canadian audience that visits to this website everyday. 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• For The Defence
• End Of An Era
• Focus On Labour and Employment Law