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news Victory in legal aid boycott gives way to new problems BY ROBERT TODD by Ontario's criminal defence lawyers. But what appeared to be a resounding victory gradually lost its lustre. After its beginning in May 2009, the boycott ended with an T 11th-hour deal in January just as the Criminal Lawyers' Association threatened to expand the campaign that saw its members refuse to represent accused in homicide and guns-and-gangs cases. The agreement introduced annual five-per-cent boosts to tariffs paid to criminal, immigration and refugee, family, and mental-health lawyers until 2015. That works out to a 40.5-per- cent increase from pre-boycott levels. Attorney General Chris Bentley, himself a former criminal defence lawyer, agreed the tariff boost was essential. "Unless people are paid reasonably, they're not going to stick around," he said. CLA past president Frank Addario, who led the association through much of the boycott, said, "I'm very satisfied that we're taking a big step he year started out with some of the best news in decades for legal aid: a renewed financial commitment from Queen's Park in exchange for an end to a lengthy boycott in the right direction." While the deal came as good news for most criminal lawyers, it soon became apparent that Legal Aid Ontario was facing a significant fiscal shortfall. Fears of the possible elimina- tion of its resource office spread after LAO cut two lawyer positions early in the year following revelations the organization as a whole faced a deficit of nearly $47 million. In April, LAO officials assured lawyers the offices were safe but they didn't deny they could eventu- ally be rolled into its general research arm. May brought the first phase of LAO's implementation of new Frank Addario led the legal aid boycott that resulted in a victory for criminal defence lawyers in January. block fees. The initial fee schedules were introduced on a provi- sional basis but nonetheless caused concern among the criminal bar. The block fee for a guilty plea on a summary conviction offence was set at $680. It was to rise to $945 in the case of a stay or withdrawal. Lawyers complained that the rates were consistent regardless of experience levels, and one analysis pegged the fee noted above at 12.5-per-cent less than what was previously paid to counsel with at least four years of experience. Meanwhile, anecdotal reports from legal aid lawyers suggested fewer certificates were being handed out after a second tariff boost took hold in April. Jordan Weisz, a Toronto criminal defence lawyer, said courthouses seemed bereft of counsel and that many lawyers had been forced to lay off support staff. While legal aid in Ontario continued to be in disarray in 2010, lawyers there could at least be consoled by the fact that they were not alone in their struggles. Legal organizations in British Columbia, for example, struck their own public commission to get input on what the province's legal aid system should look like. Next door in Alberta, lawyers railed over controversial changes to funding to Legal Aid Alberta that were prompted by a budgetary shortfall. Meanwhile, in a July report for the Canadian Bar Association titled "Moving Forward on Legal Aid," Melina Buckley called for significant reforms to programs from coast to coast. She concluded that ambitious goals when legal aid systems were introduced in the 1960s and 1970s had since been shortchanged by budgetary restrictions. She noted the problem stems largely from the fact that legal aid fails to garner the same level of public recognition as other big-ticket government ser- vices, such as health care and education. Moreover, Buckley reflected on the fact that legal aid's decline has largely been a "silent crisis." "The people most deeply affected by the shrinkage in legal aid services are low-income and disadvantaged people who have no political clout. And only those within the justice system are seeing the negative effects of the growing number of unrepresented liti- gants in civil and criminal courts." 12 December 2010 hildview_LT_Splmnt_10.indd 1 11/24/10 8:48:01 AM