Our recent submission to Legal Aid Ontario
In December, Luke’s Place participated in Legal Aid Ontario’s (LAO) open consultation process on their proposal is to increase the financial eligibility criteria for all duty counsel and criminal certificate services. While we strongly support an increase to the financial eligibility criteria, we implored LAO to extend this financial eligibility increase to their family law certificate program, particularly for survivors leaving violence.
Women and survivors leaving abusive partners need meaningful access to a family law lawyer. The current proposed changes provide limited assistance to these survivors. Countless survivors in Ontario do not qualify for a legal aid certificate but cannot afford to retain a private lawyer. This problem is not getting better.
We strongly recommend that, as part of the changes to financial eligibility, legal aid consider an increase to the eligibility criteria applied in cases of intimate partner violence under the family law certificate program to ensure that more women have access to legal representation.
We also recommend that legal aid:
- Provide more training and support on issues of trauma and intimate partner violence to all empaneled lawyers
- Increase hours on family law certificates for cases involving family violence
- Do more to incentivize lawyers to accept family law certificates
- Create less onerous and more streamlined processes for lawyers and certificate recipients
- Create a specific task force or advisory committee on family violence and family law
- Ensure the online list of lawyers who are currently accepting certificates is regularly updated
Please see the link below for our full submission:
