Law Times

LaW TIMeS • SePTeMBeR 28, 2015 Page 5 www.lawtimesnews.com Student legal aid clinics get funding boost BY ANASTASIYA JOGAL Law Times E very student legal aid clinic in Ontario is about to get a $100,000 annual funding boost. Legal Aid Ontario says its funding increase for each of the seven legal aid clinics run by law schools will allow them to pro- vide additional services to low- income Ontarians and benefit law students with added files. One of them is Queen's Le- gal Aid in Kingston, Ont. It fa- cilitates learning for 90 law stu- dents with 50 more working for the specialized clinics under its umbrella. "We are very pleased for Queen's Legal Aid to have these funds. Law students take pride in providing high-quality legal services and it's going to our community, which could not otherwise access the rates," says Jana Mills, acting senior review counsel at Queen's Legal Aid. "We are going to expand our current areas of service to include applications to the Hu- man Rights Tribunal of Ontario and expand representation in employment law cases." The clinic also expects to expand all services. Public legal education efforts, for example, will help residents of Kingston "avoid unnecessary and expen- sive legal interventions," says Mills. In addition, the clinic will train new caseworkers and hire a third review counsel. The money will also help pro- vide technology and enhance the legal learning process for law students and clients, says Mills. Interviewing via Skype and a new database should streamline legal work, she notes. "It gives the students an op- portunity to help . . . a vulner- able population [while] at the same time receiving hands-on experience," she says. At the University of Windsor, the clinic plans to expand the number of review counsel "who will be able to work exclusively in the area of small claims, look- ing at consumer data issues and wrongful dismissal claims," says Marion Overholt, executive di- rector of Community Legal Aid. Windsor, Ont., and Essex County have a high unemploy- ment rate, she notes. "As a result, we have seen a rise in situations of precarious employment, so being able to offer workers who lose their job an opportunity to consult with us and determine if they have a claim in terms of wrongful dismissal, that will be beneficial to the community," says Overholt. With high unemployment, many people are turning to things such as payday loans, she notes. "This additional money is allowing the review counsel to look at consumer debt situations. [We] will be doing a number of public education workshops ad- vising consumers, particularly seniors [and] newcomers, what their rights are under consumer- protection legislation," she says. "We are really excited that we will be able to broaden our services to the low-income com- munity." About 90 volunteer law stu- dents stand to reap the benefits of working on the extra caseload. Margaret Capes, review counsel at Community Legal Services at Western University, says legal aid revolves around three core areas of law at her clinic: civil, housing, and crimi- nal matters. "We are using this money to increase our overall number of clients we can take in all of those areas, in particular criminal law," says Capes. At the same time, the clinic can hire an articling student this year to help with the additional workload in the criminal area as well as a part-time lawyer to as- sist the full-time criminal law- yer, she notes. "The law students will be able to have a variety of different files to work on while they are with us," says Capes. "The more files we are able to open, the more broad range of types of cases that they can be potentially ex- posed to." The Community Legal Clinic at the University of Ottawa plans to enhance services in the land- lord and tenant area. "It's the area of law where we have the most demand for ser- vices, so often we were not able to provide full representation; we were only in a position to of- fer summary advice," says Lou- ise Toone, executive director of the clinic. While self-help services were useful to some, full representa- tion is an improvement, she says. "A lot of our clients are either recent immigrants, they don't speak French or English very well or they have mental-health problems, so the kinds of clients who really need representation." Besides legal advice and representation, the clinic also focuses on educating the com- munity. "We do a lot of com- munity education," says Toone. "We do sessions on legal rights on different topics like discrimi- nation at work or housing." About 60 law students at the university will have a chance to help with the cases during the school year. LT NEWS CANADIAN LAW LIST 2015 KEEPING PACE WITH THE CHANGING LEGAL COMMUNITY FOR OVER 130 YEARS This is more than a phone book. It is your instant connection to Canada's legal network. 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