(Montreal) Five university legal clinics across Quebec will receive $500,000 in funding, Justice Minister Simon Jolin-Barrette announced Friday morning.
Published at 12:01 p.m. Updated at 1:38 p.m.
Coralie Laplante The Canadian Press
The minister announced this during a press conference in front of the legal clinic at the University of Montreal Faculty of Law (UdeM), which will receive an amount of $150,000, which will allow 16 more students to join the clinic.
A mobile unit pilot project is also being set up by the UdeM Legal Clinic in Abitibi-Témiscamingue.
The University of Quebec at Montreal (UQAM) legal clinics will receive $100,000, the University of Ottawa will receive $65,000, the University of Sherbrooke will receive $83,000 and McGill University will receive $100,000.
These amounts will enable the International Human Rights Defense Clinic and the UQAM Social Justice Clinic to develop a common digital platform. The University of Ottawa’s Outaouais Interdisciplinary Social Justice Clinic will develop a flying team project that will meet citizens, Minister Jolin-Barrette said.
“I see how important university legal clinics are in the legal ecosystem,” Mr. Jolin-Barrette said, emphasizing that they play a “very educational” role in students’ journeys.
This funding comes as part of the passage of Bill 75, the Justice Accessibility and Efficiency Improvement Act, which since last year has allowed law students to provide legal advice rather than just legal information at university hospitals. These clinics offer free or low-cost legal advice.
This measure represents a “paradigm change,” according to the Rector of the UdeM, Daniel Jutras. He pointed out that the legal clinic experience used to be “frustrating” for both citizens seeking advice and law students.
For the clinic’s students, “it was like learning to swim by sitting at the edge of the pool with their feet in the water,” Jutras said.
“It’s a battle that law schools have been fighting […] for almost two decades,” continued Mr. Jutras, welcoming this new law that “allows a growing number of students to provide real legal services in a controlled environment.”
Last year, the legal clinic at the UdeM Faculty of Law offered its services to 400 citizens, the minister emphasized.