NCJ Number
176661
Date Published
1998
Length
11 pages
Annotation
Data obtained from the Legal Aid Survey, conducted annually since 1983, showed expenditures on legal aid in Canada totaled $536.1 million in 1996-1997, a 14-percent decrease over the previous year.
Abstract
Expressed in per capita terms, legal aid spending dropped from $21 in 1995-1996 to about $18 in 1996-1997. Of the $465.1 million spent on direct legal services in 1996-1997, 68 percent was paid to private lawyers and the other 32 percent went to salaried professionals. Governments continued to be the major source of revenue for legal aid plans, contributing about 90 percent of total revenues. The remaining revenue came from client contributions and cost recoveries (4 percent), legal profession contributions (2 percent), and other sources (3 percent). In 1996-1997, 824,451 applications were submitted for legal aid assistance, a 15-percent drop from 1995-1996. This figure was even lower than the 835,270 filed in 1988-1989 before Canada's legal aid system experienced higher volumes in the early 1990s, with a peak of 1,171,095 applications in 1992-1993. Of total applications received in 1996-1997, 62 percent were approved, 21 percent less than the previous year. The decline in approved applications was largely accounted for in Ontario where the government reduced available funding and tightened legal aid eligibility criteria. Although all but two Canadian jurisdictions approved more applications for criminal cases than for civil cases, slightly over half of all approved applications at the national level involved civil cases. 10 references, 5 tables, and 5 figures