By end of day Tuesday, 140 of Toronto’s most seasoned criminal defence lawyers signed a boycott of future homicide and guns-and-gangs cases to express their disapproval of waning legal aid rates, the Globe and Mail reports. The extreme measure is intended to communicate the need for senior lawyers to remain involved in these high-profile cases, not to be continually replaced by cheaper lawyers under Ontario’s legal-aid plan (which, through its declining rates, can no longer afford top criminal lawyers). Senior lawyers who charge between $300 and $500 an hour are offered $98 an hour in legal aid cases, causing many to pass those cases along to less experienced lawyers. The boycott is considered the most dramatic move Toronto’s top criminal lawyers have made to voice their dissatisfaction with the system.
Time to reform Ontario’s legal-aid?
Toronto's senior criminal defence lawyers have signed a boycott over the reduction in legal aid rates
- By Claire Ward