Tariff & billing

The legal aid tariff is a regulation setting 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, and regulations for legal aid billing and the tariff. It is intended for lawyers (and their staff) already on a legal aid panel-duty counsel and/or private bar lawyers.

• Tariff and Billing Handbook

For your convenience here are links to specific chapters:

• Hourly Tariff and Block Fee Billing Chapter only
• Criminal Chapter only
• Civil Chapter only
• Travel Chapter only
• Costs & Contributions Chapter only

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 on the Complex Case Rate panel in 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)

Tariff pre-authorizations

Tariff pre-authorizations are the result of feedback from the private bar during LAO’s province-wide consultations on discretion. They take into account the time that panel criminal and family lawyers actually spend in court. In the past, lawyers routinely requested discretion for these proceedings to compensate for limited tariff hours.

Criminal law: Summary conviction trials

Family law: Child protection status reviews (interim society care to extended society care)

Lawyers and Legal Aid Ontario

The certificate and duty counsel programs form a public-private partnership, serving low-income individuals throughout Ontario.

The province, through Legal Aid Ontario, provides funding and other support, while private lawyers contribute to legal aid by accepting the legal aid rates and tariff for legal services provided to clients.