Interested in doing legal aid work?

Lawyers who represent legal aid clients must belong to the panel(s) for the type(s) of law they practice. The standards for each panel provide the minimum experience and professional development requirements that lawyers must meet. Panel standards help ensure that legal aid clients receive high‑quality services.

Ongoing annual professional development and completion of an annual self‑report are necessary to maintain panel membership

Legal Aid Ontario’s panel standards were developed in consultation with:

  • members of the refugee, criminal and family bars
  • duty counsel
  • lawyers practising before the Consent and Capacity Board
  • judges
  • lawyers’ associations
  • Law Society of Ontario

How to join a legal aid panel

Step one: Get started

Before you can do any paid work for Legal Aid Ontario, you must be accepted as a member of Legal Aid Ontario’s panel in your area(s) of law. In other words, you need to be empanelled:

  • in your area of law (the refugee panel has its own separate process.)
  • in the geographic area where you primarily carry on your law practice (if you practice in multiple cities, you must select one area as your home base)

In general, it takes three to six weeks in total to become empanelled.

To start the process, you need to meet all applicable panel standards, or meet exemption criteria. Please provide, and submit to your district office, the following documents, in person, by fax or by email:

Send your application to:

  • Central East District
    – includes the counties of Haliburton, Bracebridge, Peterborough, Coburg, Durham, Kawartha Lakes, Orillia, Newmarket and Barrie

    Director General: Lisa Banerjee
    Phone: 705-737-3400 / 1-888-590-3961 (toll free)
    Email: banerjl@lao.on.ca

  • Central West District
    – includes the counties of Norfolk, Haldimand, Brant, Hamilton, Niagara, Halton, Peel and Dufferin

    Director General: Cynthia Harper
    Phone: 905-528-0134 / 1-877-449-4003 (toll free)
    Email: harperc@lao.on.ca

  • East District
    – 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

    Director General: Annik Wills
    Phone: 613-238-7931 / 1-877-314-0933
    Email: WillsA@lao.on.ca

  • North District
    – includes the districts of Kenora, Rainy River, Thunder Bay, Cochrane, Algoma, Timiskaming, Parry Sound and Sudbury

    Director General: Andreas Asmus
    Phone: 807-345-1972 / 1-866-297-5559 (toll free)
    Email: asmusa@lao.on.ca

  • Toronto District
    – includes East York, Etobicoke, North York, Scarborough and Old Toronto

    Director General: Tom Kelsey
    Email: empgta@lao.on.ca

  • West District
    – includes the counties of Essex, Lambton, Chatham-Kent, Bruce, Grey, Huron, Perth, Oxford, Elgin, Middlesex, Wellington and Waterloo

    Director General: Kaitlyn McCabe
    Phone: 519-255-7822 / 1-877-449-4002 (toll free)
    Email: mccabek@lao.on.ca

Step two: Meet with your director general

Once all of the application documents arrive at your area’s district office, the director general may contact you to set up an informal discussion. If you wish, you can call the director general yourself to arrange this meeting. The purpose of this meeting is to get to know each other and to discuss your expectations for doing Legal Aid Ontario work. You will then get a letter from the director general that confirms:

  • you have been empanelled with Legal Aid Ontario
  • the panels you have been approved for
  • the conditions, if any, that apply to your empanelment (if you are new to the practice of law or to a particular area of law, these conditions may include achieving prescribed standards in a set period of time, reviewing mandatory substantive law materials, and/or having an informal mentor).

The director general will forward your application package to Legal Aid Ontario’s Provincial Office for processing.

Note: Lawyers new to an area of practice may be admitted conditionally to a panel provided they agree to acquire the necessary experience within a specified time frame, and take approved continuing legal education or be mentored as required by their director general. This conditional admission does not apply to the Extremely Serious Criminal Matters panel or the Complex Case Rate (CCR) panel.

Step three: Await your Legal Aid Ontario welcome package

You will receive, in the mail, a Legal Aid Ontario welcome package that includes:

  • your Legal Aid Ontario solicitor number/vendor number
  • your tier level (the level at which you can bill; if you are a new call, you will be billing at the Tier 1 level for criminal, mental health, prison law, tribunals and civil litigation)
  • your user ID, password and other information about Legal Aid Online (Legal Aid Ontario’s online billing portal
  • technical tips for online billing
  • contact information for billing questions/concerns
  • information about conditions on your empanelment tailored to your situation, such as the requirement to attend training sessions, work with a mentor, etc.

Forms

Questions

For more information on panel standards, please contact your local director general.

Contact the Finance Department if you have questions about the following:

  • Fully completed applications that have been approved by district offices

  • Tier level increases

  • Maintaining vendor records (address changes, updating banking information, etc.)
  • HST refunds
  • Government/legal garnishment
  • Solicitor electronic fund transfer (bank EFT) rejects

Contact
Finance Department
Hours: 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday to Friday
Fax: 647‑260‑0548
Telephone: 416‑979‑2352

Further reading

Gladue panel standards Family law panel standards Extremely Serious Criminal Matters (ESM) panel standards Duty counsel – Advice lawyer panel standards Duty counsel panel standards Criminal law panel standards Consent & Capacity Board panel standards LAO’s professionalism policy General terms and conditions for panel lawyers Lawyer’s annual self‑report Refugee law panel standards