Justice Committee on Oct. 31st, 2006

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Thank you, Mr. Norlock.

Mr. Brown.

[Patrick Brown, Conservative, Barrie, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I wanted to know if you had any stats in terms of those who have used legal aid more than once. Do you have any information?

[George Biggar]

No, I don't have any statistics on that. There are certainly people who use legal aid more than once. Generally speaking, if they're people who are facing charges and have previously faced charges, they're likely at a significantly increased risk of incarceration as a penalty. Therefore, they are significantly more likely to receive legal aid and, in the view of many people, significantly more in need of legal aid.

[Patrick Brown, Conservative, Barrie, ON]

You mentioned previously that legal aid, because of the lower rates of billing, is essentially charity. I'm curious about that statement in terms of how much a lawyer who billed the most he could, if he billed the maximum hours to legal aid, would be able to make in a year. What is the maximum cap? Is it below the poverty line?

[George Biggar]

No, there is a cap on the number of hours a lawyer can bill Legal Aid Ontario. I think it's 2,700 or 2,750. At the highest rate, that works out to be just above $200,000. There are perhaps a dozen lawyers who do that well, who get up to that cap in Ontario. You have to remember that is a gross figure, though, because they have to pay for all the costs of operating their offices, their secretaries, their accountants, and support staff out of that.

[Patrick Brown, Conservative, Barrie, ON]

Are they allowed to take other clients, too, cash clients, at the same time?

[George Biggar]

Yes.

[Patrick Brown, Conservative, Barrie, ON]

What amount do you think would be adequate for lawyers to bring it beyond the charity level?

[George Biggar]

If I could just correct your question—or perhaps my answer wasn't sufficiently clear—what I said was that some of the lawyers who do the work regard it as charity work. There are many lawyers who are quite dependent on the legal aid program. We don't know and can't track in Legal Aid Ontario what the average net income of a legal aid lawyer is, but we hear anecdotally that there are a lot of lawyers who are really netting between $40,000 to $60,000 a year from full-time legal aid practices.

[Patrick Brown, Conservative, Barrie, ON]

Could you give me an idea of what percentage of lawyers you believe rely solely on legal aid billing, compared to those who bill both legal aid and cash? Would it be the majority?

[George Biggar]

I don't think so. In Ontario, you have a legal profession of 30,000 lawyers, of whom about 22,000 are in practice. Of those, I don't know what the number is, but most lawyers never go to court. What we do in Legal Aid Ontario, of course, is fund lawyers in courts. So we're getting services from only a small fraction of the practice as a whole.

From my own experience, and anecdotally, my sense is that if you are practising criminal law, quite a bit of your practice is likely to be legal aid, with some notable exceptions. But if you're practising family law, for example, you're much more likely to have a mixed practice, where you have some legal aid clients and some cash clients.

[Patrick Brown, Conservative, Barrie, ON]

Do you have any information on how Ontario stacks up when compared to other jurisdictions internationally, in terms of what we provide financially for public defenders?

[George Biggar]

I'm most familiar with the English legal aid plan. Although Ontario has a relatively large and well-funded plan when compared to other Canadian provinces, we are nothing like the English plan. The English plan is the grandmother of all plans. We all look to it with admiration.

[Patrick Brown, Conservative, Barrie, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Thank you, Mr. Brown.

Mr. Murphy.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I've been a practising member of the New Brunswick and Ontario bars and a member of the law societies there for more than twenty years. I'm not a legal aid lawyer; I've done very little of it except at the beginning of my career. It seems to me that despite the talk about improvements here—and I know you're working with an interesting system—the general coverage of legal aid has decreased over time, certainly in my province of New Brunswick, which is where I practise mainly.

Also, there has been an increased demand or recognition of demand from the law societies involved in that time. The law societies, I believe, have stepped up to the plate in terms of contributions and moral suasion regarding representing clients and so on. That's my general view, and I'd ask you to comment on that.

But the bigger question I have hasn't been covered, which is why I'm covering it. With respect to civil legal aid in support enforcement, not so much custody, because I believe that a review nationally would show that exigent custody situations might get covered one way or the other, when it comes to support obligations not being met primarily by defaulting husbands—let's call it straight—the provincial response through enforcement mechanisms is not always the best. And this cuts across all legal and partisan lines. It's a growing problem that women who have gone through a divorce or a separation are unable to get sufficiently good representation to get the money they're owed for their family, for their children. What have we done for that specific problem, and what can we do better for those members of our society?

[George Biggar]

I can only speak for Ontario. You certainly have identified a problem that has been identified in Ontario as a significant problem. We have had in Ontario, for about the last fifteen years, a government program now called the Family Responsibility Office. It's a department of I think the Ministry of Community and Social Services, and it seeks to enforce support and custody orders. But the volume of work is daunting and the compliance rates by payors still leave quite a bit to be desired, according to the press reports. But it's not an area where legal aid is actively involved in Ontario.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

But in terms of civil legal aid, in a blue sky sense, is that an area you would see yourself expanding into? I don't know if you feel it is, but I feel it's a growing problem.

[George Biggar]

Because of the existence of this other provincial agency in Ontario, it wouldn't be a high priority for Legal Aid Ontario.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Is it funded 100% by the province?

[George Biggar]

Yes.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Is there an outcry about them not having enough resources?

[George Biggar]

Yes.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Thank you, Mr. Murphy.

Mr. Lee.