History and Role of Community Legal Clinics

By Dimitrije Martinovic
(Dimitrije is a journalist with the Focus Media Arts Centre, funded by the Government of Canada through the Local Journalism Initiative).

The Neighbourhood Legal Clinic, located at 163 Queen Street just east of Jarvis Street, has been serving Regent Park and the downtown east side of Toronto since 1972.  The Neighbourhood Legal Clinic provides free legal services and assistance to low- income individuals who live within a catchment area that includes Regent Park, Moss Park and St. James Town.

The history of the Neighbourhood Legal Clinic is also part of the overall history of community legal clinics and legal aid in Ontario.  In this episode of Regent Park TV News we explore the history and role of community legal clinics in Ontario.

Legal aid was first implemented in Ontario in 1951, by the Ontario Legal Aid Plan, and is based on similar programs that emerged out of England and Scotland, to assist people who are unable to pay for the high costs of lawyers when they must appear before the court.

It replaced services previously provided by lawyers on a charitable basis and was founded on the principle that legal representation should no longer be a charity but a right.    

Recognition of this principle resulted in the implementation of legal aid programs in most of the Canadian provinces over the next few years.  The establishment of publicly-funded legal aid programs in Canada was a very significant development, and their impact on courts, lawyers, and clients cannot be over-estimated.

When legal aid was set up it was intended that the same legal aid services be made available to the poor as were already being provided to fee-paying clients.  Ontario’s system differed from England and Scotland in that it provided both private lawyers who were compensated for their services through legal certificates, and duty counsel lawyers who acted on behalf of people unrepresented in criminal courts.

Gradually, it was recognized that the poor had legal problems quite different from those of the non-poor, and it became clear that lawyers acting for the poor needed to be familiar with poverty law.

Responding to unmet needs and a desire for communities to engage in self-help, soon contributed to the creation of alternative legal services by community-based groups.  One prominent feature of most of the early clinics was the employment of "community legal workers". Generally these were persons without formal legal training but often having a background in grass-roots community organizing activities or coming from the client groups being served by the clinics. Often these were people who, having achieved some expertise in a particular legal area through their own efforts in dealing with problems they were personally experiencing, had gone on to share their expertise with others.

Another significant aspect of these early clinics was the belief that the “one-shot” case-by-case approach to respond to legal problems was inadequate because the problems of poverty were mostly of a systemic nature.  While also representing individuals these legal clinics served as a voice for the interests of poor people with a view of changing the policies, structures and laws which operated against the interests of the poor.

By focusing on welfare, rent review, workers' compensation, unemployment insurance, some immigration and debtor problems, tenancy agreements all of which certificates are almost never, or only infrequently given, these clinics transformed the concept of legal aid in Ontario.
This community legal clinic model was decidedly different from the Ontario Legal Aid Plan’s services.  In addition, all of the early legal aid clinics were established as alternatives to the government-funded legal aid Plan and relied on funding from an assortment of sources.

In 1976, under a new regulation under the Legal Aid Services Act, authorized the Ontario Legal Aid Plan to provide funding to “independent community based” legal clinics, to address the needs of low-income and disadvantaged Ontarians. Under this act the Ontario government began operating the community Legal Aid Clinics as an independent but publicly funded and publicly accountable non-profit corporation providing high quality legal aid to low-income people throughout province.

As independent but publicly funded, not for profits, community clinics are governed by a community-based Board of Directors. These Boards were drawn largely from the communities served by the clinics, they were chosen by election of the memberships of the clinics (generally, anyone eligible for service or supportive of the clinic's goals and objectives could become a member, and membership was usually actively encouraged among client groups), and they would be responsible for setting the policies of the clinic and directing its staff. The Boards have the power to hire the staff most suitable to the community; define its staff's responsibilities; and the service provided.

In the years since 1979, the clinic system in Ontario has continued to grow and prosper. According to Legal Aid Ontario, there are 79 legal aid clinics presently operating in Ontario.  The clinics provide legal assistance for problems in relation to basic needs, housing, and human rights and a range of services that include representation in courts and tribunals, legal advice, law reform activities, and referrals to other sources of assistance in your community.

The Neighbourhood Legal Clinic that serves Regent Park provides landlord and tenant housing services, services related to Social Assistance and Income Security, Immigration matters, Employment Issues and Human Rights.  They also provide notarizing services related to document verification.