Outcome of consultation: LASA 2020 rules

Minimum experience standards

July 2022

LAO held consultations on proposed minimum experience requirements that prospective roster members must meet to be eligible to provide legal aid certificate services and duty counsel services in specific areas of law.

These consultations provided valuable feedback from justice partners and guided us in supporting roster members in delivering high-quality legal aid services to LAO clients.

These are some of the improvements made based on the public feedback:

• A conditional authorization is available for lawyers who do not meet the minimum experience requirements at the time they apply for authorization, allowing them to work towards completing the requirements leading to full authorization.
• The path to conditional authorization is set out clearly in the Schedule.
• Family law and child protection law are now two separate authorizations.
• Materials for review that are easy for lawyers to access in both official languages will be posted to accompany each area of law authorization.

For more information, read the Public Consultation Feedback Summary for the Minimum Experience Standards.

LASA 2020 Rules

April-May 2021

Legal Aid Ontario (LAO) is consulting about the proposed minimum experience standards that prospective roster (formerly panel) members must meet to join our roster and be eligible to provide legal aid certificate services and duty counsel services in specific areas of law.    LAO held consultations on proposed minimum experience requirements that prospective roster members must meet to be eligible to provide legal aid certificate services and duty counsel services in specific areas of law.

Although COVID-19 restrictions made the consultation process more complicated and challenging, more than 200 individuals and organizations provided input on LAO’s draft Rules. Feedback was gathered between April 21 and May 20, 2021, via online survey, video conferences, and written submissions. Read LAO’s response to feedback received.

Feedback received was thoughtful, informed, and helpful—directly resulting in many improvements reflected in the final Rules.

These are some of the improvements made based on feedback from the public:

• The inclusion of a Statement of Principles that reaffirms LAO’s commitment to equity and human rights. It describes how LAO expresses these values and commitments in its own work and in its relationships with clients, service providers, and the public.
• The various circumstances under which a lawyer may be denied entry into the legal aid roster has been narrowed and a schedule providing details added to the Roster Management Rule.
• Rules have been streamlined, with several schedules replaced with obligations and requirements embedded into the body of the Rule.
• Some of the issues raised during the feedback process will be addressed and clarified in LAO policies, e.g., what constitutes an “exceptionally complex” matter, under what circumstances will LAO assign a lawyer to a client, etc.

For more information, read the Public summary feedback of LASA 2020 Rules.