“Innocent until proven guilty” offers a comforting illusion, it insinuates the ability to fight for your freedom through trial without prejudice. While this thought is relieving for many, we fail to consider how the verdict is determined before we even set foot into the courtroom. It’s decided by something much more complicated – wealth. Lawyers are indeed an integral part of our society, they defend, sentence and serve us. However, often underrepresented and discarded, are the most critical lawyers of all: legal aid lawyers. Legal aid lawyers are public lawyers assigned to those who cannot afford private ones, and while not completely free, they offer affordable prices for a variety of clients. While this may be largely beneficial, there are many faults in this system that negate the affordability of the service. The main flaw in this system lies in the treatment of legal aid lawyers. These lawyers are often underpaid and overworked which often results in the inability to represent and defend their clients to the best of their ability. Moreover, legal aid services offered by a wide range of lawyers also face a lack of funding, exacerbating already existing issues and worsening conditions for individuals in need of legal services.
Legal aid lawyers represent about 10% of overall lawyers in Canada, with around 91% being lawyers that belonged to a private firm. As wealth inequality continues to increase, we witness in response an ever-increasing demand for affordable defense. However, this is a demand that cannot be met. In 2020/2021, there were 224,000 applications concerning adult matters, excluding youth and family matters completely. With 224,000+ clients and Legal aid lawyers making up <10% of overall lawyers in Canada, this sets an impossible standard that puts both the lawyers and the applicants at a disadvantage (Legal Aid in Canada). Oversaturation of clients results in overworked lawyers who need “sufficient time between cases to prepare,” a luxury that’s not given to them. While the number of clients/applicants seems to be ever-increasing, the salaries of legal aid Lawyers have remained relatively stagnant. While private firm lawyers average around $100,000 per year, earning $51.28/hour (this does however fluctuate based on the number of years spent at the firm) (“Lawyer Salary in Canada – Average Salary”). Legal aid lawyers earn around $80,000 per year, with bonuses of up to $2,000 (ERI Economic Research Institute). While these two factors may seem unrelated, they’ve both played equally large roles in the anger brewing within the legal aid community. There have been multiple instances of certain legal aid lawyers withholding services all over Canada in an attempt to voice their concern about payment and the amount of work legal aid lawyers are expected to carry out under such circumstances. A lawyer writes: “Two years ago, lawyers in British Columbia—who are paid 30 percent less than I am—withheld services for eighteen months to press the government for a raise,” after discussing a case in which he and his student put well over 100 hours in research and court only to be paid $7,000 (Davies). While this withholding of services does draw attention to the important issue of ensuring correct payment for the amount of work put in, it puts citizens at a disadvantage as they have no access to affordable legal services. While it may be easy to dismiss this example as it is relatively small scale, these withholdings have been going on for years. Around some time in August of this year, some defense lawyers offering legal aid in Alberta began to withhold services including: providing bail-related services and courtroom duty counsel until funding is increased and salaries improved (Mrinali Anchan).
The absence of certain legal aid services has led to disadvantages for many people. Lack of representation – especially affordable representation often results in people having to represent themselves. While the ability to represent yourself can be beneficial in small-scale court cases, it doesn’t always work out, especially with more complex criminal cases. In these criminal cases, a lack of experience concerning the legal system puts one at a disadvantage, as there are intricacies within the judicial system that everyday citizens are unaware of and incapable of fully understanding. There are many examples of this inability to truly understand the law resulting in major losses for the citizens representing themselves, both financially and socially. The Hope family (Kevin and his wife Fay,) determined to invest in land properties and decided to represent themselves in cases against the municipal government in Saskatchewan. Unfortunately, their case was thrown out of court due to multiple strikes, and later even the appeal they made against the decisions of the court was also dismissed (“Representing Yourself in Court Is Popular but Costly and Risky”). Of course, not all cases of self-representation result in their cases being thrown out of court. So was the case for Caroline Wilson who was successfully able to represent herself in a divorce case. However, this did come about with the help of a lawyer who coached and advised her (“Representing Yourself in Court Is Popular but Costly and Risky”). Self-representation comes at a huge risk and about 30%-40% of all people who go to court represent themselves. With the wealth disparity constantly increasing, self-representing litigants are sure to increase. However, an overall increase in funding for legal aid lawyers could fix at least a portion of this issue, namely, the strikes legal aids have been carrying out. Increasing funding could allow for the ability to hire more legal aid lawyers to ease up the overflow of cases burdening current legal aid lawyers, giving the lawyers enough time to prepare for cases so they may be able to properly defend their clients. An increase in funding could also increase the salaries of legal aid lawyers, ensuring they’re properly compensated for the amount of work they put in. Lastly, ensuring that legal aid offered by other types of lawyers is properly funded will further increase the accessibility of these services when individuals are in need of them.
Representation is important, when we’re facing multiple claims made against us, it’s comforting to know there is someone in our corner fighting for us. To be denied representation, whether directly or indirectly, due to financial reasons and lack of government support for cheaper alternatives is a violation of our natural rights. By raising awareness of the struggles legal aid lawyers are constantly experiencing and how that affects the justice system, we may be able to deliver equal representation to all.
Works Cited
Canada,. “Self-Represented Litigants in Family Law – JustFacts.” Justice.gc.ca, 2016, www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/fl-lf/divorce/jf-pf/srl-pnr.html.
“Representing Yourself in Court Is Popular but Costly and Risky.” CBC, 31 Dec. 2015, www.cbc.ca/news/canada/representing-self-court-lawyers-1.3375609.
Canada,. “The Daily — Distributions of Household Economic Accounts for Wealth of Canadian Households, Third Quarter 2021.” Statcan.gc.ca, 2021, www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/220128/dq220128b-eng.htm.
Legal Aid in Canada. 2020-21, www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/jr/aid-aide/2021/docs/rsd_rr2022_legal-aid-in-canada-2020-21-eng.pdf.
Mrinali Anchan. “Defence Lawyers Vote for Job Action over Legal Aid Alberta Funding.” CBC, 5 Aug. 2022, www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/alberta-defence-lawyers-job-action-1.6541866.
Davies, Breese. “Going Broke in Legal Aid.” The Walrus, 23 Aug. 2016, thewalrus.ca/going-broke-in-legal-aid/.
ERI Economic Research Institute. “Legal Aid.” Salary Expert, 2022, www.salaryexpert.com/salary/job/legal-aid/canada/alberta.
“Lawyer Salary in Canada – Average Salary.” Talent.com, 2022, ca.talent.com/salary?job=lawyer#:~:text=How%20much%20does%20a%20Lawyer%20make%20in%20Canada%3F&text=The%20average%20lawyer%20salary%20in,up%20to%20%24132%2C250%20per%20year..
Canada,. “Legal Aid Program.” Justice.gc.ca, 2020, www.justice.gc.ca/eng/fund-fina/gov-gouv/aid-aide.html.
Note: A correction was made and a new version of this blog was published at 1:20pm MST on November 30th, 2022. Please disregard the earlier version, as inaccurate information was included in that blog.
Written by: Salamat Ibrahim
Edited by: Manat Sidhu
Campus UNICEF 