Regional changes

Published: October 3, 2019

We have recently moved to a new District structure that very closely matches the Ontario Court of Justice (OCJ) judicial districts, except for the North where we now have one District while the OCJ has two. This results in our total number of districts having been reduced from 10 to 6.

The objective of the reorganization was to rationalize and realign the districts to improve the efficiency of our services to clients, especially with regard to support of our staff and the support of our relationship with stakeholders and service providers.

The six (6) new Districts and their Directors General are:

1. North District – Director General Andreas Asmus
   – includes the districts of Kenora, Rainy River, Thunder Bay, Cochrane, Algoma, Timiskaming, Parry Sound and Sudbury
2. West District – Director General Kaitlyn McCabe
   – includes the counties of Essex, Lambton, Chatham- Kent, Bruce, Grey, Huron, Perth, Oxford, Elgin, Middlesex, Wellington and Waterloo
3. Central West District – Director General Matthew Hammond
   – includes the counties of Norfolk, Haldimand, Brant, Hamilton, Niagara, Halton, Peel and Dufferin
4. Central East District – Director General Lisa Banerjee
   – includes the counties of Haliburton, Bracebridge, Peterborough, Coburg, Durham, Kawartha Lakes, Orillia, Newmarket and Barrie
5. East District – Director General Annik Wills
   – includes the counties of Hastings, Lennox and Addington, Frontenac, Leeds and Grenville, Lanark, Renfrew, Ottawa and Carleton, Prescott and Russell and Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry
6. Toronto District – Director General Tom Kelsey
   – includes East York, Etobicoke, North York, Scarborough and Old Toronto

These changes took formal effect on September 16, 2019 but the operational processes and systems necessitated by some of these changes will require some months to complete.

There will be no disruption to the legal aid services that clients and service providers receive from LAO from these changes. Our objective is that this realignment will be seamless in terms of our clients, our service providers, justice partners and stakeholders.