Tariff & billing

The legal aid tariff found in Schedule 2 of the Rules and sets out the compensation for lawyers who provide services to low-income clients. It sets hourly rates, and also establishes the maximum number of hours that Legal Aid Ontario pays a lawyer for specific types of proceedings.

The legal aid tariff reflects the fees customarily paid by a client of modest means. These fees apply for all legal aid services, except in exceptional cases.

Legal Aid Ontario also pays lawyers block fees for some of the most common criminal charges.

Tariff and billing Handbook

The handbook is a plain language interpretation of policies, procedures, rules and schedules for legal aid billing. It is intended for lawyers (and their staff) already providing legal aid certificate or duty counsel services and/or private bar lawyers.

• Tariff and Billing Handbook

Disbursements

The Disbursements Handbook lists all disbursements requiring pre-approval. You will need to attach your invoices for such disbursements when billing. Billing unapproved disbursements may result in the denial of your expenditure for payment.

• Disbursements Handbook

Tariff Rates

There are four different hourly rates; three depend on a lawyers’ tier level, which is assessed based on certified years of experience. The fourth is for lawyers whose cases qualify for the Complex Case Rate. Lawyers must be authorized to provide Complex Case Rate servicesin order to receive this rate.

Tariff structure for all areas except Northern Ontario

Please note that the tariff hourly rate is based on the issue date of the certificate, while duty counsel rates are based on the service date.

* Effective February 1, 2010 there is no separate rate for Junior Counsel
** Pursuant to regulation 14.1 and 14.2 as well as 24.1 and 24.2 of Tariff Regulation for Criminal and Civil Matters respectively

Tariff structure for Northern areas

The GDR is available only for certain duty counsel and certificate services in one of five designated areas (Cochrane Area 05, Kenora Area 15, Rainy River Area 35, Temiskaming Area 39 and communities served by Nishnawbe-Aski Legal Services Corporation (NALSC) Area 48). The following chart summarizes the rate increases:

Big Case Management (BCM) – Complex Case Rate (CCR)