B.C.'s lawyers have gone some distance to filling the gap left by the cut to legal aid funding.
The province is now home to the best "pro bono" system, which provides legal representation and advice at no cost, in the country, according to Canadian Bar Association - British Columbia (CBA-BC) president Sharon Matthews.
Since annual legal aid funding was slashed in 2002 from about $90 million to $60 million, several different means have developed to provide the service, and one of the primary ones is Access Pro Bono (accessprobono.ca).
"They screen cases for merit and financial eligibility and then they send them out to lawyers who've signed up to do pro bono cases, and that system is really effective," Matthews said.
In 2010, 5, 514 lawyers in B.C. provided an average of 47.5 hours of pro bono work each.
"That equates to a week and a day that over 5,000 lawyers donated their time," Matthews said. "That would be giving advice, going to court for people, doing pro bono work for charities, those sorts of things.
"So that's pretty impressive, when the cuts were made the profession really stepped up."
Another program sees the Law Foundation use interest from lawyers' trust accounts to pay for access to justice initiatives, notably funding community advocates trained to deal with poverty law such as residential tenancy issues and mental health reviews.
Self-help ressources have also been developed, but Matthews said they make a poor substitute.
"When you're in the middle of the crisis, that doesn't replace someone who can go in and express what your issue is in a way that's designed to get the result that you need," Matthews said.
And Matthews said a huge gap still remains due to the government funding cuts.
"The most marginalized in the province are still without a guide to take them through a crisis," she said.
