Acting for a legal aid client provides me with the opportunity to assist with what can be really overwhelming legal issues for any litigant.
-- Annabelle Oliver Dunbar, referral lawyer since 1983
Join the dedicated team of lawyers who provide legal aid services to thousands of disadvantaged British Columbians each year. Whether you’re just starting your legal career or you’re a seasoned lawyer, making legal aid work part of your practice will be rewarding and will provide you with many opportunities and benefits.
Why do legal aid work?
When you do legal aid work, you’ll:
- help to make a significant difference in people’s lives
- contribute to your community
- fulfill your sense of social responsibility
- take on interesting case work in criminal, family, immigration law, and appeals
- gain significant court room experience
- work with a variety of cases you may not otherwise experience
- receive access to extensive support services, including online services
- benefit from practice resources to help you work with your legal aid clients, such as:
- mentoring projects for lawyers with less than five years’ call
- free legal research memoranda from Legal Aid Ontario Law
- discounts and subscriptions for lawyers who take three legal aid contracts within 12 months:
- bursaries to participate in courses/training for free
- free enrollment in the Trial Lawyers Association of BC’s Criminal Defence and Family Law Litigation Group List Servers
- a free subscription to electronic case summaries
- get paid in a timely and efficient manner
- work with an organization that’s committed to helping people with low incomes throughout BC find solutions to their legal issues
Access to justice isn’t just a slogan at LABC — it’s what we do.
If you’re ready to sign up to take legal aid cases, see these instructions to apply for a vendor number using the Lawyer Vendor Application Form-A. Then print a copy of the form for your files, sign it, attach a copy of a void cheque (or provide a banking stamp from your financial institution), and email it to lawyer.support@legalaid.bc.ca.
We’ll notify you by email when we’ve issued your private bar vendor number, and we’ll arrange a one-on-one LABC orientation session for you with a Lawyer Support Representative. Our orientation program qualifies you for two CPD credits.
Then you can contact the LABC locations you’d like to receive contracts from and introduce yourself.
If you have questions about doing legal aid work with LABC, please email us at lawyer.support@legalaid.bc.ca.