With lawyers threatening a strike, honcho of the Legal Services Society Mark Benton was waiting for the next shoe to drop: Victoria still had not finalized his budget.“I found out last week . So we’re scrambling a bit as we try to develop plans to address that if it happens. But we’ve had strikes before.”
The 72-page brief suggested six options, ranging from a $27-million band-aid to adding $114 million to return support to 1990s levels. Seven years ago, Benton dealt with a partial service withdrawal by duty counsel, but that fizzled — and there hasn’t been a full-blown strike since the early 1990s. “What we do is set priorities around services. Not surprisingly, the things that get the highest priority are things like domestic violence cases, where we want to make sure people get assistance right away. That takes priority over everything else.”“It involves people being separated from their kids, so we’re trying to make sure we place those or fly lawyers in to do those,” Benton said.
The self-regulating profession has done little to address that access-to-justice crisis other than to pen compelling reports demanding more money that gather dust.
Gee. I thought Socialists were supportive of Legal Aid.
Law Law Latest News, Law Law Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Source: VancouverSun - 🏆 49. / 61 Read more »
Source: VancouverSun - 🏆 49. / 61 Read more »