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Page 12 June 16, 2014 • Law Times www.lawtimesnews.com LAO mediation pilot expanding across Ontario Project provides family litigants with up to six hours with a lawyer By arsHy mann Law Times Legal Aid Ontario pilot project that pro- vides independent legal advice to people using family mediation ser- vices will be available across the province by the end of the year. The pilot project, launched in nine cities across Ontario in February, gives unrepresented litigants going through the me- diation process access to a lawyer. "Legal aid is really trying to move people out of a litiga- tion model of resolving family matters and more into a consen- sual dispute resolution model," says Thomas Kelsey, director of family law services for LAO. Anyone who meets the fi- nancial eligibility criteria can get up to six hours with a law- yer. Kelsey believes the program helps to bridge the gap between meditation and having a final- ized legal document. "We had heard from media- tion service providers around the province that one of the challenges that they were find- ing in having parties get mediat- ed agreements was the difficulty in obtaining independent legal advice," says Kelsey. "Once the mediated agree- ment is signed by the parties, they still need to get indepen- dent legal advice to have a valid, enforceable, binding document." LAO has had only limited communication with the pri- vate bar about the pilot, at least in part because of the recent Ontario election that required it to cancel a number of webinars it had scheduled. Despite that, it has issued 352 independent legal advice authorizations between the Feb. 23 launch and June 2. "There seems to be some interest and some uptake on them," says Kelsey. Kelsey says preparations are currently underway to imple- ment the program across On- tario later this year. Trish Thomas, an LAO me- diator at the 47 Sheppard Ave. E. courthouse in Toronto, believes the program has been a success so far. "It's encouraging people to come in pre-litigation, which is absolutely fantastic because as soon as court documents are served on someone, the gloves are off and they get very posi- tional," she says. Thomas says that by giving families access to both media- tors and lawyers, they get the best of both worlds. "They come to a resolution, they get to customize it for their own family, and they can turn it into a legally binding agree- ment," she says. Thomas, who was hired as a mediator in 2011, says she has seen mediation in Ontario be- come more fully integrated into the family courts in the last few years. Thomas notes she has sensed many lawyers are apprehensive about mediation. "I think lawyers do feel threat- ened by mediators, but it's a part- nership, in my view. We do very different things. What I do is I try to help parents renegotiate their relationship as co-parents. Generally, I don't have lawyers at the mediation table. But nobody signs anything, any agreements, at the mediation." However, she believes me- diators have helped to ease the backlog in the family courts and expects that to accelerate as unrepresented litigants begin to use the independent legal advice program. "A lot of cases settle at first ap- pearance," says Thomas. "And again, there will prob- ably be people who will be by- passing the whole court pro- cess altogether as this becomes more and more widely accepted, which is a great thing in my opinion." Since the pilot project began, LAO has also recently expanded the financial eligibility test for independent legal advice. If one party in a dispute is eli- gible for legal aid services under the duty counsel financial eligi- bility test, an opposing side with an income below $50,000 will automatically qualify. "We're really casting quite a wide net and hoping to be able to include a lot of people who wouldn't otherwise qualify," says Kelsey. In addition, LAO will be expanding coverage under the certificate program to help peo- ple enter into separation agree- ments. Thomas is optimistic about the future of the independent legal advice program and hopes the legal community gets be- hind it. "I think it's good for lawyers. I think it's good for families. I think it's good for the court sys- tem to keep people out of the court system as much as pos- sible. It's cost-effective. There's a lot of good reasons for it." LT FOCUS CANADA'S ANTI-SPAM LEGISLATION CASL - THE TOUGHEST LAW OF ITS KIND IN THE WORLD. IN FORCE JULY 1, 2014. ARE YOU READY? 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