In brief: News for lawyers

Legal Aid Ontario has introduced new coverage for Section 19 Youth Conferences under the Youth Criminal Justice Act. This update recognizes the time and expertise roster lawyers dedicate to supporting youth in these proceedings. Starting Dec.14, 2025, roster lawyers can request this coverage through Legal Aid Online when submitting a judicial pre-trial request. Similar to…

Beginning Dec. 7, you will need to set the court addresses where you provide legal aid services in the ‘My location’ and ‘sub location’ in the duty counsel worksheet. Making it mandatory to set court locations will ensure a seamless start to the account generation process as service codes will now be automatically added to…

Starting Dec. 7, you will only need to submit one account for both criminal and family services, rather than multiple separate accounts. A new dropdown menu also has been added to the account page to make it easier to select the appropriate service category for each client and improve reporting accuracy. Key benefits This update…

Last weekend, Legal Aid Ontario experienced an unexpected service disruption that caused a temporary outage affecting several core systems, including Legal Aid Online. Access has now been restored; but you may notice slower performance, as we continue to stabilize the system. To prevent future disruptions, we may need to schedule short maintenance periods over the…

Help your clients resolve their family law matters quickly, at no charge, and without going to court. Legal Aid Ontario (LAO) settlement conferences offer a practical, accessible alternative to traditional family law litigation. For more than 30 years, these conferences have helped parties resolve disputes through voluntary settlements, guided by impartial, experienced facilitators – all…

We are pleased to share details of the inaugural Legal Aid Summit, taking place on Nov. 6 and hosted by the Law Society of Ontario (LSO). This full-day event brings together experts in access to justice and legal aid to share strategies for building a rewarding and sustainable practice. Participants will gain practical insights on…

As part of ongoing enhancements to the Legal Aid Online portal, Legal Aid Ontario (LAO) has created a new notification process to streamline updates regarding roster members’ status with the Law Society of Ontario (LSO). Roster members must maintain “In Private Practice” status with the LSO, in accordance with the Legal Aid Services Rules and the…

The ongoing Canada Post labour disruption is impacting Legal Aid Ontario’s (LAO’s) ability to send and receive mail. We will continue to process mail as we receive it, and we will resume sending physical mail once the service disruption is resolved. Please continue to submit documents electronically through the lawyer portal. If you need to…

Legal Aid Ontario (LAO) values the work you do as a lawyer providing legal aid services to low-income Ontarians. As part of our commitment to supporting roster members, we are pleased to announce the launch of an updated version of the domestic violence awareness training program for roster lawyers providing legal aid certificate services in…

Legal Aid Online will be unavailable on Sunday Sept. 7, from 6 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. ET to archive and remove completed certificates from the portal. The work, originally scheduled for Saturday July 26, could not be completed due to technical issues. The archiving and removal of completed certificates is routine maintenance, and applies to concluded appeals and all cancelled,…