Some Ontario lawyers have stopped accepting refugee clients on legal aid fearing they won’t get paid under new cutbacks that took effect Thursday. Under the old payment scheme by Legal Aid Ontario (LAO), lawyers were paid for the work they did preparing refugees’ appeals at the federal court and drafting opinion letters for the clients’ legal aid application, even if LAO ended up rejecting the request. However, under the new system, LAO won’t reimburse the legal service already invested if it disapproves the legal aid at the end, either because the client earns more than $12,000 a year or the case is deemed unlikely to succeed. As a result, critics say, refugees must now first fork out the legal fees from their own pockets just to get help in applying for legal aid — unless the lawyer is willing to take a chance and do the preparatory work for free.
St. John’s
