However, that would effectively prevent paralegals and law students from representing defendants in provincial court, as they regularly do now, because the Criminal Code only allows them to act in cases where the maximum penalty is six months in jail. By increasing the maximum penalty for all summary offences, the federal government would boot them out of court. Article Continued BelowDefendants who use paralegals or law students tend to fall into a gap, neither qualifying for legal aid nor being able to afford a lawyer. Daniel Brown, a Toronto director of the CLA, noted that students work in provincial courts under the supervision of criminal defence lawyers and it’s unlikely they would be permitted to defend serious criminal cases. He said prior to the regulation of paralegals by the Law Society of Ontario in 2007, they were permitted to act in such cases.

Source: thestar April 19, 2018 21:38 UTC