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Clinics provide services in areas of law that most affect low income individuals and disadvantaged communities, and particularly focus on issues around which a low-income "community of interests" can coalesce. Often clinics assist people with meeting their most basic needs, such as a source of income, a roof over their heads, human rights, rights to education and health care, etc...
Clinics provide these services through a variety of methods, including traditional casework, summary advice, self help, public legal education, community development and law reform initiatives. Clinic work often involves trying to effect systemic change on behalf of the broader community.
There are 80 clinics in Ontario. Sixty of these serve specific geographic communities. Nineteen are "specialty clinics" in that the community they serve is not defined geographically. Examples of "specialty clinics" are:
- Advocacy Centre for the Elderly
- Justice for Children and Youth
- ARCH - A Legal Resource Centre for Persons with Disabilities
- Injured Workers' Consultants
- African Canadian Legal Clinic
Further information about many clinics is available on their websites, which can be found on our links page.
Legal Clinics receive their core funding from Legal Aid Ontario. The relationship between clinics and that funder are governed by a funding agreement comprising a Memorandum of Understanding, and a variety of policies including the LAO-Clinic Consultation Policy, and a Dispute Resolution Policy. The statutory basis for this relationship is established by the Legal Aid Services Act (LASA), 1998.
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