Last month, hundreds of new lawyers were called to the bar in Ontario. But how many of them will include legal aid cases in their practices? The latest word on legal aid suggests that new lawyers can hardly be blamed if they steer clear of legal aid.
Moving Forward on Legal Aid: Research on Needs and Innovative Approaches — Dr. Melina Buckley’s recently released report [PDF] for the Canadian Bar Association — includes a section with details on what legal aid organizations could do to recruit and retain lawyers willing to accept certificate cases.
Dr. Buckley performs a cross-country survey of the state of legal aid initiatives, and found one consistent issue that needs to be addressed. “The approach to recruitment and retention adopted by Canadian legal aid organizations is fairly wide-ranging,” she writes, “but it focuses on current members of the bar. A long-term strategy should also focus on developing and supporting young lawyers to do legal aid work.”
But how? Dr. Buckley offers some insights, courtesy of the U.K.-based group Young Legal Aid Lawyers:
- increasing the number of work opportunities;
- introducing a commitment to training into Legal Service Commission contracts with law firms;
- commencing a transparent debate about the future of legal aid advocacy; and
- instituting a structured programme for dissemination of information for students and in particular set up annual legal aid careers events.
With regard to law school debt, Dr. Buckley stops short of recommending a loan forgiveness program (like some provinces offer as an incentive for doctors and nurses). Instead, she references Michael Trebilcock’s 2008 report on legal aid for Ontario Attorney General Chris Bentley. Trebilcock, she writes, “urges all Ontario law schools to re-examine their back-end debt-relief programs to ensure that they are sufficiently generous to render the option of practicing poverty law feasible….”
The report concludes with ten recommendations, including a focus on developing and supporting legal aid lawyers, as well as a call for the CBA to lead “a major national campaign for renewal of the Canadian legal aid system.”