BC Legal Services

[bclegalservices]

[bclegalservices]

Legal Aid's Coming Denial of Service

The government-funded agency that provides legal aid in British Columbia is advising its lawyers not to book any hearings for criminal and child protection cases in the last six weeks of the fiscal year because it is running out of money.

"Because some very busy courts are about to set hearing dates for that time period, we strongly recommend that you avoid booking hearing dates for your criminal and child protection cases or doing any hourly paid legal aid work from February 17 through March 31, 2014," says a Sept. 4 Legal Aid Brief to lawyers from the Legal Services Society (LSS). "You might consider booking hearings for your non-legal aid cases in this period."

A spokesperson for the LSS said the recommendation is being made out of caution while the agency continues negotiating with the provincial government for more funding. LSS chief executive officer Mark Benton was unavailable for an interview by publication.

"It is akin in the health care sector to saying 'Don't book any surgeries in February or March, because we're short of money and we're going to shut the Nanaimo Regional Hospital,'" said Leonard Krog, the BC NDP's critic for the attorney general. "Imagine the outcry."

Legal aid provides funding for lawyers in certain kinds of cases for people who can't afford to pay their own way. Krog said it has been hammered by the government for the last 12 years, but that talking about making the service unavailable is unprecedented.

"It's hard to believe in some respects that's the state we've reached. The fact this is being contemplated tells you how dreadful things have become."

'Factors outside our control'

The LSS is short $2.5 million for criminal cases and $500,000 for child protection cases, according to a brief from Benton in the newsletter.

"What is unusual this year is that while we have had a 12 per cent increase in referrals for child protection cases, the demand for criminal legal aid has not increased and yet criminal tariff costs have gone up," the newsletter said.

"Over the past several months, we have determined that this increase is driven by external factors outside our control," it said. "These factors include federal legislative changes such as the Safe Streets and Communities Act, the Provincial Court backlog reduction initiative, and renewed capacity in the Provincial Court due to the appointment of judges and prosecutors."

It now takes about half as long to get a case to trial in many of the province's courts than it did before, it said, so the LSS is receiving bills sooner. "As a result, LSS is paying for more services this year than we had budgeted for. Another way to put this is that this year, we expect to receive about 58 weeks of bills for services provided in 52 weeks."

The situation will stabilize in a few months, but the LSS is legally required to balance its service costs with its revenue each fiscal year, meaning it is unable to bump the increased costs ahead to when things even out, it said. It also has to bill for services in the fiscal year they are provided.

The newsletter said the LSS has been discussing the problem with the B.C. Ministry of Justice since May, raised it with Attorney General Suzanne Anton in July and discussed it with Chief Judge Thomas Crabtree in August. Discussions with Anton continue, and the LSS board expects to meet with her again in late September, it said.

The board is looking at ways to reduce service costs for criminal and child protection cases, but is waiting until after the next meeting with Anton before making a final decision.

Gov't helping with budget: Anton

The LSS's contingency plan is to cut service from mid-February until March 31, 2014, according to the newsletter. "LSS would continue to take applications and issue referrals, and we would have the discretion to authorize payment in cases where there is exceptional risk to the client, but as a general rule, we would not pay for the majority of criminal or child protection services provided by counsel during this period."

The Tyee asked the Ministry of Justice for an interview with Anton or someone else who could provide an update from the government's perspective. A spokesperson sent a statement by email, attributed to Anton. It noted her July and upcoming meetings with the LSS and said "they are working closely with the staff in my ministry to manage their budget."

The government is providing LSS with $72.5 million to deliver legal aid and it is "a government priority to balance the budget, and all the branches within my ministry are working extremely hard to ensure that they stay within their budget," Anton's statement said.

"We are focused on timely and accessible justice, and legal aid is an essential part of providing justice to British Columbians," it said.

Krog said the province has a moral duty, and likely a constitutional duty as well, to provide legal aid services to people in need.

The government may view the threatened service freeze as a negotiating tactic, but it shows how serious the situation is, he said. "The fact this is being contemplated tells you how dreadful things have become," he said. "You don't resort to this kind of stuff unless things are pretty desperate."

The legal aid system gets $20 million less a year now than it did 12 years ago, without even factoring in increased pressure from population growth and inflation, Krog said.

People expect government services to be available year round, but there may be less of an outcry from a freeze on legal aid than there would be from shuttering a hospital or temporarily cutting the electricity supply from BC Hydro, he said.

"The percentage of the population who are going to rely on legal aid in a given fiscal year is smaller than the population that will rely on health care or public education," he said. "The government is causing pain to a small population because it believes it can get away with it."

There's still time to find a solution, Krog said, but he warned, "If they don't solve this, the public relations consequence will be significant," as will the consequence to people who need the service.

Source: http://thetyee.ca/News/2013/09/16/Legal-Aid-Service-Denied/

[bclegalservices]

ICBC Claim Help

Advancing your ICBC claim can be very difficult and confusing. You are dealing with trained insurance adjusters who are hired by and paid by ICBC. Their employment requires that they minimize the pay-out on ICBC claim and so you need to be adequately educated to understand how best to pursue your ICBC claim to get a fair result.

That is why we have over 70 professionally written articles all available to you FREE online! You will find your ICBC experience more rewarding by knowing what to expect from your ICBC claim and the settlement process.

Source: http://www.icbcadvice.com/about-wesley-mussio.php

[bclegalservices]

‘Urgent crisis’ facing B.C. family law services

Women’s advocacy group is proposing two pilot projects to address cuts to legal aid

A women’s advocacy group is proposing two pilot projects to address an ‘urgent crisis’ in family law services caused by cuts to legal aid over the past decade.

Although 6,579 women applied in 2013 for legal aid to help with a family law matter, fewer than half received a referral, according to a West Coast LEAF report released Wednesday. In that same reporting time, 2,870 men applied for legal aid for the same matter.

“Access to justice and family law in particular is the most urgent crisis in B.C.’s justice system,” said LEAF legal director Laura Track in an interview with The Vancouver Sun.

“These issues are so profound around family law: access to children, economic security of spouses, fair division of assets and the health and safety of women fleeing abusive situations.”

The most dramatic cut to Legal Services Society took place in 2002, when its budget was slashed by almost 40 per cent over three years. As a result, the number of family law litigants approved for legal aid decreased from more than 15,500 in 2001 to fewer than 4,500 in 2012/13.

Of those who were referred to a legal aid lawyer on any matter, only 32 per cent were women.

The report found that 72 per cent of the legal aid referrals were for criminal matters and most of these involved men. And 16 per cent of the referrals were for family law cases.

“The vast majority of legal aid is allocated to criminal matters and men are more likely to need and receive that support,” said Track.

“When the government cut funding, it had a disproportionate effect on women.”

The report also noted that 38 per cent of Canadian marriages end in divorce, resulting in approximately 70,000 divorce orders annually. Family law cases account for about 35 per cent of all civil cases in B.C. There were 68,532 active Family Court cases in B.C. in 2009 to 2010.

“Despite the frequency with which family legal issues arise, access to justice in family law cases is out of reach for the vast majority of British Columbians,” the LEAF report stated.“Research prepared for the Law Foundation of BC found that family law is the most significant unmet legal need in the province.”

West Coast LEAF’S pilot projects would include lawyers working directly in community agencies servicing women, and for a women’s clinic, led by student lawyers, to provide free and low cost family law services in the Metro Vancouver area, with a travel and technology budget to serve remote regions.

Track said the Legal Services Society Plan for 2014 shows a budget surplus of $5.5 million and although $4.3 million is tentatively earmarked for updating its database, that would still leave $1.2 million that could help pay for the cost of the two pilot projects.

But, she said, the surplus can’t be spent without government approval.

“Since the dramatic cuts in 2002, government funding for legal aid has remained relatively stable, but has not been adjusted for inflation. Nor has it kept pace with other components of the justice system. From 1994/5 to 2008/9, the Provincial Court’s budget increased by 114 per cent and funding for prosecution services went up to 132 per cent, while legal aid funding dropped by 22 per cent.”

The report stated B.C. is now the third lowest province or territory in Canada in per capita spending on legal aide.

The agency says its recommendations are based on a year of consultations in 16 urban, rural and remote communities across B.C.

Source: http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Urgent+crisis+facing+family+services/9555637/story.html

[bclegalservices]

BC Lawyers Withdraw Services to Protest Lack of Legal Aid Funding

VANCOUVER — Legal aid lawyers who have withdrawn services to protest what they say is a severely underfunded system donned their black robes outside provincial court in Vancouver, saying the B.C. government is failing to meet the needs of the province's most vulnerable citizens.

Members of the Trial Lawyers Association of BC, who stopped taking new cases on the weekend, said Monday that government funding for legal aid has remained the same for 23 years despite inflation and population growth.

As a result, two-thirds of people who cannot afford a lawyer are denied legal assistance, they said.

"Now, we have almost 95 per cent of people in our family courts unrepresented," said Birgit Eder with the association's legal aid action committee.

"Single moms cannot get a lawyer. They are expected to go up against former spouses who very often can afford to pay a lawyer. So one side has a lawyer because they have money, and the other side has to fumble through on their own because legal aid has no money for a lawyer for them."

Eder told reporters that roughly 40 per cent of people who are accused of criminal offences are forced to fend for themselves in court because they can't afford a lawyer.

She said the government currently provides $56 million a year for legal aid. The association is pushing for the government to increase that amount from a tax on lawyers' fees that was introduced in B.C. in the early 1990s.

Revenue from the tax, which generated about $150 million last year, was always meant to go solely towards legal aid, Eder said.

But Justice Minister Suzanne Anton refuted that claim.

"There is a general misunderstanding that provincial sales tax collected on legal services is being misdirected to general revenue," she said in a written statement.

"When the provincial sales tax was applied to legal services in B.C. in 1992, the government of the day did reference that the revenue from the tax would offset the escalating costs of legal aid. However, the tax was never designated to directly fund legal aid. The provincial sales tax collected on legal services is no different from any other good or taxable service. The revenue goes directly to government general revenues, which fund all ministries of government including the Ministry of Justice."

Anton said the government hiked the Legal Services Society's budget by $2 million this year, to $74.5 million.

Eder said some of that funding actually comes from the federal government.

New Democrat Attorney General critic Leonard Krog said the $74.5 million is nowhere near what the legal aid budget was more than a decade ago, when it was between $92 million and $93 million.

He criticized the Liberal government for aiming to cut expenditures at the expense of low-income British Columbians.

"When you've got two-thirds of the people who actually even apply are denied, that doesn't begin to address the issue of those who don't even bother to apply because they know there's no hope," he said. "If you're low income, your chances of getting legal aid the way we knew it in this province are very, very slim indeed."

Members of the Trial Lawyers Association are vowing to refuse all new cases until early August.

Eder said more action is planned for October unless the government increases funding, but Anton said the government will bring in lawyers from other areas if necessary to ensure essential legal services are available.

Source: http://www.vancouversun.com/news/lawyers+withdraw+services+protest+lack+legal+funding/10009039/story.html

[bclegalservices]

With Legal Aid Strained, BC Lawyers Hold Free 'Advice-a-Thon'

On a Friday afternoon in Vancouver's Victory Square park, a dozen or so tents, tables and booths are filled with lawyers in suits and ties listening to clients of many backgrounds, binders of documents at the handy. The park is filled with the quiet murmur of phrases such as "wrongful dismissal," "family court," "dispute resolution" and "small claims."

A row of chairs is half-full of people clutching paper tickets, waiting for their chance for counsel.

"The public needs to see that legal services are accessible to everyone in the community, and not just for those who can afford the large firms' fees of $500 an hour," said criminal defence lawyer Esther Kornfeld, as she prepared to see her next client in one tent.

Kornfeld is one of more than 100 lawyers across the province who are taking their free legal services to the streets this month.

Organizers of the Pro Bono Going Public events say the services are intended for low-income people who face barriers in dealing with their legal troubles. The events started in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside last week and will soon be available in four other B.C. cities: Surrey, Victoria, Kelowna and Kamloops.

For many of the lawyers involved, the events are intended to convey a deeper message for the provincial government. It's now been 12 years since major reductions were made to legal aid in B.C., starting with a dramatic 39 per cent between 2002 and 2004.

"Legal aid funding is very difficult to get in this province," said Martin Taylor, a former judge in the B.C. Court of Appeal throughout the 1980s and early '90s. "The government has a responsibility there, though what they should do is a matter of opinion. They should be making every effort to assist people in having access to resolution of their legal problems, just like having access to health care, unemployment and being able to survive in old age."

Organizer Jamie Maclaren said the "advice-a-thon" is a chance for lawyers to do their part in helping those without means access an often opaque and complex justice system.

"It's been underfunded for years and years," Maclaren, also executive director of the Access Pro Bono Society of B.C., said of legal aid. "We're trying to exert a bit of pressure, in an indirect way, to the provincial government to rise to the occasion and fund legal aid to the extent it ought to."

Restoring legal aid access to 2002 levels would require a $50-million-a-year injection, according to a 2011 report commissioned by Public Commission on Legal Aid, a project of the Canadian Bar Association, Law Society of B.C., Law Foundation of B.C., B.C. Crown Counsel Association and local bar associations.

Not sure of the options

One of several hundred clients seeking legal assistance identified herself as Swampy, a Cree and Mohawk woman who has been involved in the neighbourhood's latest tent city in Oppenheimer Park. The tent city sprang up earlier this summer in protest of increasing homelessness and substandard conditions in single resident occupancy hotels in the city.

Swampy came to Pro Bono Going Public on behalf of two tent city residents, both with disabilities, who had "suffered injustices in the system" but were not sure of their options.

"It's really important to be here today and get him some legal advice from a criminal lawyer," she said. "Quite a few of [homeless people] are illiterate, others can't see, they don't have money for the bus or cellphones. A lot of these people don't know they can get help if they are a victim -- it's fight or flight when they're getting attacked."

B.C.'s Justice Ministry denies the system is inaccessible, pointing to this year's $2-million boost in funding to the Legal Services Society, which administers legal aid in the province. That tops up provincial funding to nearly $75 million annually.

"Government recognizes the importance of supporting legal aid for low-income British Columbians," a spokeswoman who refused to be named said in an emailed statement. The additional $2 million, she said, is targeted at five new family and criminal justice pilot projects which aim to "increase access to high-quality, legal services" for those in need, she explained.

The spokeswoman pointed to Statistics Canada data from earlier this year suggesting that B.C.'s level of legal aid funding has kept pace with the Canadian average of roughly three per cent a year.

BC justice 'in a transitional phase': former judge

Lawyers like Kornfeld, however, say the government has repeatedly blown the opportunity to effectively fund access to justice. "We've been let down so many times by attorney generals that are very well aware of the situation of the courts and of legal aid lawyers," Kornfeld said.

She decried not only the loss of funding since 2002, but also the nearly $90-an-hour rate paid for legal aid lawyers. "Our costs are the same, whether or not we're billing out at $500 an hour or $89.90 an hour."

Former justice Taylor believes B.C. is "in a transitional phase" when it comes to access to the justice system, in spite of calls for restored legal aid funding. But when it comes to other ways to help people resolve their legal troubles, he sees a lot of hope.

B.C., for instance, is one of the only provinces to publish its court records and dockets online, unlike Ontario where only court dates are newly available but not documents.

"In the future, people will be able to get a lot more legal advice and a lot more help in settling their problems through electronic means -- the Internet," he said.

Such advancements will help people stay out of court, which can be time-consuming and stressful, he said. "The court is a last result for people who are unable to address their disputes in any other way."

Asked about any new initiatives on that front, the Justice Ministry spokeswoman said the province hopes to use new technologies to "connect clients to resources" and heighten access to legal advice.

"We believe that this will lead to a more accessible and sustainable justice system," she said. 

Source: http://thetyee.ca/News/2014/09/08/Lawyer-Advice-a-Thon/