Team finds legal support is lacking
Suggests ways to Boost public Access to law services
A Legal Service Task Team has made a number of recommendations intended to help address concerns surrounding public access to legal services.
The team — appointed in 2017 and made up of 11 people with different backgrounds relating to legal services — released its final report this week, which looked into existing issues and what should be done to address them.
Recommendations call for changes that would make it clearer what roles non-lawyers can play in helping clients with legal issues, and look to add flexibility to existing legislation.
MANY PEOPLE DO NOT OR CANNOT ACCESS HELP FROM A LAWYER
The team noted that while almost half of Canadians will experience a legal issue within any three-year period, many don’t use lawyers because they can’t afford them, don’t have access to them in remote or rural locations, or can’t find one to help them in their own language or culture or in certain areas of law. In Saskatchewan, only members of the Law Society (lawyers and students-at-law) are authorized to deliver legal services, which the report noted both reduces competition and increases prices due to a restricted supply of services.
Because many still need legal help, organizations and individuals often try to meet clients’ needs by providing legal information and assistance. The report notes many of these service providers don’t pose a significant public risk, and that a law degree might not be necessary to adequately deliver all legal services.
The report points out the Legal Profession Act broadly prohibits the unauthorized practice of law, and provides little guidance about what kinds of services can be offered by non-lawyers — potentially limiting sources of support for the public.
TYPES OF SERVICES CONSIDERED
Various organizations, agencies or individuals often sought out for legal advice — besides lawyers — include paralegals or legal assistants, notaries public, Aboriginal court workers, mediators and arbitrators, workers’ advocates, court staff, legal service organizations, and other professions and community service organizations.
No current need for separate group of providers
Although it was found there are unmet needs in the province, the report determined “it is not yet time to move towards the creation of an entirely separate professional group of legal service providers with a common scope of practice” — although the task team added “circumstances may change.”
The task team instead suggested a move toward more flexibility in the regulation and delivery of legal services.
SEVERAL RECOMMENDATIONS MADE
The team made several recommendations that, if followed, would involve actions taken by the government and the Law Society.
Recommendations are for greater clarity for service providers about what legal services are regulated; the expansion of the list of exceptions to the prohibition against practising law as a way to recognize existing service providers; granting the Law Society licensing authority to allow service providers to practise law with a “limited licence on a caseby-case basis”; modernizing legislation regulating legal services, making it more flexible in coping with future needs; the creation of guidelines to help educate the public about legal services available to them; and conducting pilot projects to help develop and test the recommendations.
Justice Minister and Attorney General Don Morgan said he will review the recommendations along with the Law Society.