Ian Mulgrew: Legal-aid review falls flat

The B.C. government should radically change the way it delivers legal aid by opening community clinics staffed by lawyers and advocates to serve the needy, says a new review that lawyers immediately discounted.

A more balanced service-delivery mix rather than the current fee-driven model would allow for the distribution of cases among tariff, clinic or staff lawyers according to who is best suited, Maclaren argued. “We haven’t had our budget approved for the year, so we don’t know how many of these recommendations will be acted upon by government,” he added.

Fowler pointed to the call for an experimental criminal law office with a team of staff lawyers, paralegals, administrators and support workers. Still, he acknowledged Maclaren’s broader themes were commendable — that legal aid is essential to the rule of law, and change will require much greater funding.

Maclaren, executive director of Access Pro Bono, asserted: “Legal aid is not broken in B.C. It has simply lost its way.

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