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What kind of
services do you offer?
What areas of law do you
help with?
What
areas of law do you NOT provide help with?
Do you
issue Legal Aid certificates?
What
if I need an emergency legal aid certificate
because
I am a victim of domestic violence?
How much do your
services cost?
Will I
qualify for your help?
What kind of
community development work do you do?
What kind of law reform
work do you do?
How do I get help
from legal clinic staff?
What if I
don't have a phone?
Can I see a lawyer
or legal worker right away?
What if you
can't help me?
We
provide referrals, legal information, legal advice, representation
before courts and tribunals,
Tenant Duty
Counsel, community development and
law reform.
We provide
services in the following areas of poverty law:
Housing
Income Programs
Employment
Other
Click on
Legal Information for
more information on any of these areas of law or
contact us for
help with your particular situation.
We do
NOT practice real
estate, criminal, family or immigration law.
No, we are not the
Legal Aid Ontario Area Office. Contact
Legal Aid Ontario to see if
you qualify for a certificate. We do not issue Legal Aid
certificates.
We can issue
special certificates for emergency legal advice
for victims of domestic violence. Local
women's
shelters and the
Legal Aid Ontario
Area Offices also offer the
same service.
We give free legal
information and advice on the
telephone or by appointment. We encourage people to call first.
There are no fees
for our services. Clients, where able, may
be asked to pay for legal disbursements such as
court filing fees and medical reports.
Information and advice can be provided
to most callers. Legal representation is provided only to
people within our financial guidelines. You must also live
within the counties of Hastings, Prince Edward or Lennox &
Addington.
The clinic sets
priorities annually for representation in legal matters.
Self-advocacy is promoted and encouraged.
Clinic staff work
with community groups on issues of concern to
people living on a low income in many different
ways. We are currently involved in
various special projects, including:
Click a project
name above for more information or go to our
Community
Development page.
We advocate for
positive changes to laws affecting people living
on a low income in our community.
Law reform
activities can include:
-
creating awareness about the
need for law reform
and systemic injustice
-
working with groups on law
reform projects
-
meeting and working with
government departments
to improve their service delivery to poor and
disadvantaged groups
-
writing to and meeting with
politicians at the
municipal, provincial and federal levels of government
-
linking our clients and
community to law reform
initiatives in other communities
-
preparing briefs and submissions
to government bodies
-
appellate work and test case
litigation
Go to our Law Reform page for more
information and how you can help.
Please phone our legal clinic for help
from Monday to Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. We use a voice
mail answering system so that we can serve you better. Your call is very
important to us - please don't be discouraged by the voice mail! You can
just press "0" to bypass the welcoming message and speak to a staff
member who can help you. Usually your call will be answered immediately,
unless it is a Thursday morning. Thursday mornings are reserved for
staff and team meetings and we do not provide reception and intake
services from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. However, if you have an emergency,
we screen calls on Thursday mornings
or you can drop into our Belleville office for help.
For most callers,
we are able to provide information and referrals within one hour, and if
necessary, book an appointment to either speak to or see one of our
staff - lawyer, community legal worker or law clerk - in one of our
offices usually within a week.
Many of our
clients don't have phones. You are not alone. If
you can't use a friend or family member's phone,
you can use a public phone and dial our
1-877-966-8686 number and you won't have to pay
for the call. Or if you need to, you can "drop
in" to our Belleville office. We do discourage
"drop ins" at our satellite office locations as
our schedule for staffing these offices tends to
change based on demand, availability of staff,
and the scheduling of hearings in our satellite
areas. So please try to call first.
We have organized
our services so that we "triage" based on
urgency. "Triage" means we try to deal with
problems in the order of how serious they are
rather than on a "first come, first served"
basis. This is because if we don't deal with
some issues right away, like having no money for
food or rent, or being threatened with eviction,
very serious
consequences can result and cause great harm to our
callers. So if there is no pending legal
hearing, or you have enough time to file an appeal or
court documents, your problem could get less
priority.
We'll try to refer you to someone who can.
Please see our Other Resources page
for some ideas of where else you can go for help. You can also call the
lawyer referral service provided by the Law Society. This service
charges $6.00 to your phone for the call, but they will refer you to a
local lawyer for a free half-hour. Call 1-900-565-4577.
We are also working with local private bar
lawyers on a Pro Bono Project.
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This site provides general information only,
specific to Ontario, Canada. It is NOT
legal advice. 
