Boycott of Ontario legal aid cases only hurts the vulnerable, editor says

A boycott of the Ontario legal aid system by the Canadian Lawyers Association hurts those who need good legal representation most, according to Melissa Kluger, the editor of Precedent magazine, a publication for younger lawyers distributed throughout Ontario.

Our criminal justice system only works if everyone who travels through it receives fair treatment under the law — no matter what they earn, where they’re from or the crime they’re accused of. This is a hot topic now in Ontario as more and more lawyers refuse to accept legal aid certificates for homicide, and guns and gang cases. Led by the Criminal Lawyers Association (CLA), defence counsel are boycotting these complex cases in an effort to pressure the Ontario government into increasing the notoriously low hourly rate it pays for legal aid work.

Kluger says she understands why the CLA has resorted to drastic measures and that it is long past time for legal aid to pay enough to attract experienced senior lawyers; it must also compensate junior lawyers well enough that they can take the time and care required to focus on their cases, rather than piling up an unmanageable workload trying to earn a living.

Still, the CLA boycott is a poor tactic and one that will ultimately prove ineffective. It hurts the very people the association claims to so vigorously represent. These are poor, powerless individuals accused of the most heinous of crimes and — as defence counsel so often remind us — they are presumed innocent. Meanwhile, the boycott is going largely unnoticed by the public at large.

[Disclosure: I am on Precedent's advisory board.]