Legal aid plan personnel

Legal aid plans in Canada currently operate under one of three service delivery models: the staff lawyer model, the judicare model and the mixed model. In the staff lawyer model, lawyers providing legal aid services are employed directly by legal aid plans. In the judicare model, legal services are provided by lawyers in private practice who are paid by the legal aid plan based on tariff rates. The mixed model uses a combination of staff and private lawyers to provide legal aid services. The following section of the report provides information on the service delivery models at legal aid plans by detailing the type of staff working in legal aid, and cases they work on. This includes information on both lawyers and non-lawyers.

Legal aid services are delivered primarily by private bar lawyers

Table 17 provides an overview of the proportion of staff lawyers versus private bar lawyers delivering legal aid services across the country. While these data provide a picture of the number of lawyers providing services, these figures do not reflect the differences between the legal aid case loads of private bar versus staff lawyers. In some cases, a legal aid plan may have a higher proportion of private bar lawyers, but the staff lawyers at that plan may be managing a higher proportion of cases. Over the past five years, the proportion of staff lawyers versus private bar lawyers delivering legal aid services has remained consistent.

In 2022-23, 87% of the 10,533 lawyers providing legal aid services in Canada were private bar lawyers (Table 17). Staff lawyers made up 12% of lawyers providing direct legal aid services to clients, and other lawyers (such as Executive Directors) made up 1%. In 2022/23, among private bar lawyers, 34% provided both criminal and civil law services. There were more private bar lawyers providing only civil law legal aid services as compared to only criminal (34% and 27%, respectively), while 7% of private bar lawyers provided legal aid services for I&R matters. Of the staff lawyers and other lawyers, the highest proportion provided both criminal and civil law services (75%), while 15% provided only criminal services and 9% provided only civil law services. The remaining 2% provided services for I&R matters (Figure 21).

Overall, 32% of the 10,533 lawyers providing legal aid services in Canada were in Ontario, 26% were in Alberta and 21% were in Quebec. When looking at the breakdown between private and staff lawyers within each province/territory, British Columbia and Alberta had the highest proportions of private bar lawyers (97% and 96%, respectively), while Saskatchewan and Newfoundland and Labrador had the highest proportions of staff lawyers (94% and 80%, respectively) (Table 17).

Figure 21. Most lawyers delivering legal aid services provide both civil and criminal services.

Figure 21. Most lawyers delivering legal aid services provide both civil and criminal services.
Figure 21. Most lawyers delivering legal aid services provide both civil and criminal services. – Text version

This is a horizontal bar graph with four bars. Going from left to right, the categories include criminal and civil, other civil, criminal, and Immigration and refugee (I&R). The bars have two sections each, with the top being in light purple representing staff lawyers / others and the bottom portion in dark purple representing private bar lawyers.

The first bar to the left for criminal and civil includes 75% of the staff lawyers / others and 34% of the private bar lawyers.

The second bar for other civil includes 9% of staff lawyers/others, and 32% of private bar lawyers.

The third bar for criminal includes 15% of staff lawyers/others, and 27% of private bar lawyers.

The fourth and final bar for I&R includes 2% of staff lawyers / others, and 7% of private bar lawyers.

Non-lawyers made up 16% of legal aid plan personnel

Legal aid plans employ a variety of non-lawyer personnel to support the delivery of legal aid services to clients. Over the past five years the proportions of various legal aid plan personnel have remained relatively stable. In 2022-23 lawyers made up 84% of legal aid plan personnel and non-lawyers made up the other 16% (Table 18). Of the 2,025 non-lawyers working for legal aid plans, intake workers/support staff (83%) were most common, followed by paralegals/legal assistants (13%), and articling students/other (i.e., managers) (4%) made up the remaining non-lawyer personnel (Figure 22).

Figure 22. Legal aid plan personnel include a variety of staff, with intake/support workers making up the largest cohort outside of the private bar.

Figure 22. Legal aid plan personnel include a variety of staff, with intake/support workers making up the largest cohort outside of the private bar.
Figure 22. Legal aid plan personnel include a variety of staff, with intake/support workers making up the largest cohort outside of the private bar. – Text version

This is a horizontal stacked bar graph with two bars. The top bar represents non-lawyers, and the bottom bar represents lawyers. The overall graphic represents distribution of legal aid personnel as of March 31, 2023.

The top bar has three portions, with intake/support workers taking up the majority at 83% colored in dark purple. Paralegals / legal assistants takes up 13% in light purple, and other managers/ articling students take up the last 4% in medium purple.

The bottom bar has two portions, with private bar lawyers taking up 87% colored in dark purple. The remaining 13% is taken up by staff lawyers colored in light purple.