Legal Aid planning major changes

Some employees report fearing A merger that may lead to job losses

The government agency responsible for representing the province’s most vulnerable citizens in court is planning a major restructuring of its operations in Saskatoon.

Those changes — the merging of family and criminal law offices — have some employees fearing for their jobs amid expectations that more work will be farmed out to private lawyers.

Legal Aid and government sources, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, said the changes were communicated to staff last week, and it’s understood some work from both offices will be picked up by non-legal Aid lawyers.

Craig Goebel, Legal Aid’s CEO, confirmed plans to merge the offices, but declined further comment, saying negotiations with the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 1949 were ongoing.

While the union learned of Legal Aid’s plan to change how it delivers service in Saskatoon early last week, details have not been provided, CUPE Local 1949 president Wanda Towstego said in an emailed statement.

“Our CUPE members work tirelessly on behalf of our clients, and it is our intent to protect our members rights while also protecting the integrity of the services our members provide.”

It’s unclear what is driving the change, but sources indicated skyhigh remand rates are likely part of the overall justification.

Saskatchewan Trial Lawyers Association president Nicholas Stooshinoff said he hopes the restructuring will not adversely affect his colleagues at the government agency.

At the same time, “more soldiers in the trenches to deal with the daily onslaught of accused individuals who need legal attention on an urgent basis” is likely a good thing, he said.

“I think it’ll be quite beneficial because once you have more people to carry the weight of these daily demands then (Legal Aid clients) are going to be better served.”

The agency, which cost $25.2 million to run last year, receives most of its funding from the provincial Ministry of Justice. It also receives grants from the Law Foundation of Saskatchewan and some court cost awards.

The Ministry of Justice declined to comment.

Legal Aid — which has 14 area offices across the province — has the equivalent of 155 full-time employees (FTES), of which 83.5 are lawyers, Goebel told a legislative committee meeting on May 7, according to the Hansard record.

“The total amount of files have not changed either in terms of the number of intake compared to the number that are being assigned to either private bar or to staff,” he told the committee.

“We would expect that we can ... If everybody is there, if the full FTE complement is there, then these numbers and these FTES and these normalized case counts are reasonable.”

Legal Aid sources, however, spoke of punishing workloads that could be alleviated by hiring new lawyers.

It’s a point Stooshinoff echoed when he described the “overwhelming amount of work that Legal Aid has to deal with.”

According to its last annual report, the average number of files per staff lawyer — Legal Aid handled more than 24,000 last year — is on the rise, climbing from 200 in 2013 to 250 in 2017.

Slightly more than 10,000 of those files are considered “duty counsel” cases — chiefly the processing of recent arrests. Speaking to the committee, Goebel acknowledged that “weekend work” is a challenge.

“Either Legal Aid hires an additional 10 lawyers or so for Saskatoon, or matters are farmed out to private counsel … There’s no other way to deal with it; you’ve got to put more lawyers in there,” Stooshinoff said.

A formal announcement of the changes is expected later this week.