Conditionally enrolled roster members must update their status

Published: May 9, 2024

Conditionally enrolled certificate roster members and duty counsel roster members will soon receive and must respond to a three-month advance notification on Legal Aid Online that their conditional roster authorization with Legal Aid Ontario (LAO) is expiring.

As a reminder, under the Legal Aid Services Rules, duty counsel roster membership is 24 months in duration and only renewable if you meet the minimum experience requirements.  Roster members can request renewal of their duty counsel authorization every 24 months for as long as you want to continue providing services in the duty counsel roster, subject to approval by LAO.

Updating through Legal Aid Online is a quick and easy process.

Instructions for conditionally enrolled certificate roster members

Simply respond to the expiry notification and provide one of the following responses:

• You meet the minimum experience requirements for the roster(s) that you are in.

• You do not meet the minimum experience requirements and are asking for a 12-month extension of your conditional enrolment to the roster(s). 

• You no longer want to maintain roster membership.  

If you do not respond to the online notice about your conditional status by the time that your authorization expires, your conditional authorization will unfortunately be removed.

Instructions for duty counsel roster members

You can easily update us through a simple, online process by providing one of the following responses through your Legal Aid Online account:  

• You already meet the minimum experience requirements for your duty counsel authorization and want to remain on this roster by renewing your authorization for an additional 24 months.

• You are conditionally enrolled on a duty counsel roster and you now meet the minimum experience requirements, you may request to renew your authorization for an additional 24  months.

• You do not meet minimum experience requirements and understand that you will be removed from the duty counsel roster.

• You do not want to maintain membership in the duty counsel roster.

Minimum experience requirements

Minimum experience requirements were introduced in August 2022 after extensive consultation with the private bar and justice sector participants to ensure LAO’s roster lawyers provide high-quality legal aid service as set out in the Legal Aid Services Act, 2020 and through recommendations by the Auditor General.

To encourage new lawyers to join LAO’s roster, prospective roster members who do not meet the minimum experience requirements may be provided with a conditional authorization. This authorization allows prospective roster members to gain experience providing legal aid services on the condition that they meet the minimum experience requirements within 24 months of being granted conditional authorization. In some cases, this conditional authorization can be extended once by 12 months.

More information

For technical issues with the renewal tool on Legal Aid Online, please contact the Lawyer Service Centre at 416-979-9934 or 1-866-979-9934 from Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.  

For questions about the renewal process and minimum experience requirements, please contact roster@lao.on.ca.