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Mission, Vision, Values
Clinic Goals (2003-2007)
Our
Staff
Board of Directors
Brief History of Our Clinic
Detailed History of Our First
15 Years
The Legal
Clinic System
History of Legal Aid Ontario
History of
the Development of Poverty Law Services
in Canada
Powerpoint Presentation on Our Clinic
What is the difference between Legal Aid and Legal Clinics?
Working with Legal Aid partners to
improve coordination
between our services
MISSION STATEMENT
The
Community Advocacy & Legal Centre provides access to justice
through quality legal services, advocacy and information for people
living on a low income or in poverty.
VISION
We strive to achieve social justice
with dignity by influencing change in our community, our institutions
and the law.
VALUES
We
believe:
-
Justice is a right for
individuals and communities
-
In being client centered and
accessible
-
Every person is of infinite
value
-
In being responsive to, and
collaborative with, our
community
-
In creative, innovative and
effective services and
work
The
clinic's Board of Directors sets strategic direction to the clinic for a
multi-year period. The Board and staff set bi-annual action plans
to carry out the strategy.
Find out more about our clinic's strategic goals for the five year
period we are in right now.
In
2006, we reviewed our goals and set directions for the next 5 to 10
years for our clinic.
View a graphic illustration of our plans.
We have a small
staff of about a dozen people which include lawyers, community legal
workers, law clerks, an executive director, an officer manager, intake
workers and support staff. All the staff work mainly from our
Belleville office, and travel to our satellite locations as needed.
Learn more about our staff and what they do.
Our clinic is a
not for profit corporation governed by a Board of Directors. Ten Board
members are elected annually in the fall at the Annual General Meeting.
Our Board members are drawn from throughout the community we serve and
have a healthy mix of expertise and experience.
Find out more about our Board.
Click this
link for a
brief look at our clinic’s history which began in
1980 in this community.
Click here for a
more detailed look at the highlights and changing mandate of our clinic
since we first opened our doors to the public in December 1980 and for
the 15 years that followed. Eventually we will add the
highlights of the years since then.
View a graphic illustration of our last 25 years.
Our clinic is just
one of 79 clinics in Ontario.
The
Association of Community Legal Clinics of Ontario
(ACLCO) has prepared a
pamphlet (PDF, 210 kb, 2 pgs) explaining what is a community legal
clinic.
You can also view a
paper by the ACLCO (PDF format, 60 kb, 10 pages) entitled "Critical
Characteristics of Community Legal Aid Clinics in Ontario" explaining the special characteristics of legal clinics in
Ontario.
A
more detailed discussion of legal clinics in Ontario is found in the
report, "Poverty
Law: A Case Study prepared for Legal Aid Review" (PDF, 65 pgs),
which was prepared by York
University Professor Janet Mosher for the Review of Legal Aid June 20,
1997.
Legal clinics are
just one part of the legal aid system in Ontario.
Read an historical overview we've provided, culled
together from a number of sources, for people who are interested in the
bigger picture for “access to justice” service delivery in our province.
This
paper was
written by a researcher hired under a Canadian Bar Association grant
from the "Law for the Future Fund." We are on the steering
committee for PLANC, the
Poverty Law Advocacy Network of Canada.
View a
short slide show about the services our clinic provides which is
suitable for any audience. It will be updated from time to time so it
is best accessed from this site rather than saving it to another
location.
Many people get
confused and don’t know who to call when they have a legal problem
except to know they want “legal aid.” There are two main types of
services funded by Legal Aid in most communities. They offer fairly
distinct types of help.
Legal Aid Area
Offices generally help people who need a lawyer in a criminal or family
law matter. They do this by:
-
issuing
legal aid certificates to use private bar
lawyers for help and representation
-
offering legal
information and advice clinics in areas
of law that the legal clinic usually does not assist in
(family, criminal, real estate, estates, consumer,
civil claims (suing someone) etc.)
-
providing duty counsel in
most courts
Legal clinics like
ours on the other hand, focus on poverty law problems as described
elsewhere on this site. Our traditional legal services range from
simple referrals, to providing information, to giving specific advice,
to providing self-help, to advocacy in emergency situations, or to
representation before courts and tribunals. We also have a special
mandate to do community development work. We are also expected to do
law reform work and take that obligation very seriously.
More specific
information about local Legal Aid funded services is contained in our
Other Resources section.
Our clinic services are confused with the
Legal Aid Area Office and their services (which are primarily about
issuing legal aid certificates and providing advice and duty counsel at
family and criminal courts) are confused with ours. In an effort to
keep our services as streamlined as possible, we meet several times a
year with our colleagues at the Belleville, Napanee and Kingston Legal Aid Area
Offices, Queen's Student Legal Aid and the Rural Services clinics to
problem solve and improve services. We've developed
Legal Aid
Comparison charts for
Hastings, Prince Edward, Lennox and Addington and Frontenac counties for staff use that sets out
specifically which services are offered by which office. We also
have a
joint brochure for clients about Lennox and Addington services.
In addition to our local work, staff also
work with our legal clinic colleagues in other regions on a number of
national and provincial initiatives. These initiatives are intended to
increase the capacity of the legal clinic system and poverty law
advocates to work collaboratively, effectively, efficiently and
creatively on the challenges that we face in increasing "access to
justice" for people living on a low income or in poverty, and
disadvantaged groups. Examples of some of our projects are:
We
also sit on several Advisory Committees for Legal Aid Ontario.
Click on the
Our Services
button to learn more about the specific services we provide.
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pdf, 17kb*
This site provides general information only,
specific to Ontario, Canada. It is NOT
legal advice. 
