Dozens of lawyers dole out free advice in downtown Vancouver

Access Pro Bono held its annual Advice-a-thon in Victory Square on Friday, Sept. 6, 2013. (CTV)

Legal advice rarely comes cheap, but for a crowd of low-income Vancouverites who queued up in Victory Square on Friday, it was absolutely free.

The park played host to Access Pro Bono Society’s sixth annual Advice-a-thon, where 72 lawyers of various specialties volunteered their skills while drawing attention to the dearth of free legal services in B.C.

“We do it because we need to do it,” said Jamie Maclaren, executive director of APB.

“There’s a glaring need for free legal services in this province. There’s people who can’t afford to hire lawyers at their regular rates, or even discounted rates, and they’re faced with very severe legal problems.”

The lawyers, stationed at 10 white tents, advised pre-booked and drop-in clients on a range of issues including immigration, custody disputes, and civil matters.

“It runs the gamut. We have the full range of lawyers here the can serve any area of law,” Maclaren said.

Criminal issues aren’t generally dealt with at the Advice-a-thon because they’re better covered by legal aid, he added.

Access Pro Bono said B.C. has the highest level of volunteer engagement in Canada, with 1,000 of the province’s roughly 10,000 lawyers offering free services each year.

That flies in the face of the typical pop culture depiction of lawyers as money-hungry ambulance-chasers.

“Solving people’s legal issues is pretty fundamental to the well-being of our society,” said lawyer Tamara Hunter, who participated in Friday’s event.

The society said the volunteer rate is also due in part to necessity, arguing that legal aid funding has been woefully inadequate since the B.C. government slashed it by 40 per cent in 2002.

Access Pro Bono holds more than 100 free clinics are held across B.C. every year. Upcoming Advice-a-thon events are being held in Kamloops on Sept. 10, Victoria on Sept. 13 and Surrey on Sept. 17.

For more information, visit the Access Pro Bono website.

With a report from CTV British Columbia’s Julie Nolin