This column is not intended for legal advice, but highlights situations in which you should consult a lawyer. Questions may tumayoung@yahoo.ca lawyers are obliged to devote as much time and attention to mutual legal assistance cases as to paying private clients and to treat all their clients fairly and without discrimination. One. Legal aid is a publicly funded financial arrangement. It is available to people who meet a certain criterion and cannot afford legal representation. b. Legal aid aims to guarantee beneficiaries the right to defence and the right to a fair trial, regardless of their means. If the charge is serious, then we are probably dealing with a district court case. If this is the case, it is preferable to use the private practice of legal aid with a lawyer; with the client who organizes the legal financing of summonses and expert opinions on legal aid. On the other hand, my colleagues and I were in the office late into the night (11pm), making sure that each of our clients` files were up to date, checking that all angles were covered, and that we were doing everything we could to not only provide the legal support paid for by our clients, but also the emotional support she and her family needed.
We even received a call at 9:45 this morning from a lady in court who needed advice. The question the customer must ask is: “Is it in my interest to pay privately?” In short, do I get better service and therefore a greater chance of acquittal or another favourable decision? Well, this is not a purely academic question for some customers. Clients in the Magistrate`s Court can have unlimited capital or savings, and if their income is within the limits, they are eligible without contributions. They may want to consider using some of their savings for their case. Legal aid is not always “free”. In the Crown Court, there may be very high contributions of income and capital as well as notices of deposit against ownership in real estate. Legal aid is means-tested and, if legal aid is granted, usually covers part of the legal costs of dealing with a criminal case. If your case is important to you, then you want the best lawyers to work on it. They will want to benefit from their years of experience in similar cases and their full attention. As in most areas of life, you usually get the quality of service you pay for. You wouldn`t expect the most experienced lawyers to work on your legal aid case, and you wouldn`t get other lawyers.
This is because it is not economical for them to do so. When experienced lawyers provide legal assistance, they do so at a loss. For this reason, many businesses will use newly qualified articling students, paralegals and lawyers for their supervised legal aid files. Surveillance may ensure that cases are handled competently, but it will not guarantee excellence. If that`s the excellence you want, then you might want to consider paying privately. Although private lawyers may be criticised for taking on legal aid cases and not giving them priority or sufficient time, this should not be the case under any circumstances. As mentioned earlier, any lawyer, even if overworked and underpaid, will be better than representing themselves. In fact, I`ll go a little further and say that most of the legal aid lawyers I know (admittedly, not a large sample) were very good. Of course, they can be stretched from time to time, but the fact that the government pays for your legal representation, whether through a private lawyer funded by legal aid or a lawyer employed by legal aid, is certainly no reason to believe that your lawyer will not do what he can to get a good result. A few months ago, we were led by a client accused of a very serious crime; If convicted, he faced a lengthy prison sentence.
We assisted him in his first hearing in the Magistrates Court and then in his engagement with the Crown Court, where we got to know our client and his family well. We knew his situation and we knew his situation. When he explained that he needed legal help because of the loss of his job, we talked to him about it and his options. We looked for ways to continue to support him, but when it became clear that there was no way forward because he simply could not afford a private lawyer, we assured him that once he chose one, we would provide his new lawyer with everything he needed. Legal aid is a service designed to provide high-quality legal advice and representation for those who need it and might otherwise be disadvantaged. We often have clients who transfer their files to us from a legal aid firm, and sometimes clients leave our firm because they are unable to privately fund all their files due to changing circumstances. Second, the attitude of many clients towards legal aid should not be considered reliable, and I would not believe much of what you might hear from them. They often deny the difficulties they face and tend not to be proactive in the course of their case. So if they`re looking for someone to blame if the outcome is worse than what they romanticized, they`ll quickly point the finger at their lawyer and not themselves. Can I hire a lawyer for only part of my legal case? If you decide you need legal help for part of your legal problem, consider hiring a lawyer who will only work on that part. Some lawyers “unbundle” their services and only offer help for part of your case.
You can ask a lawyer referral organization to help you find a lawyer who offers unbundled services.