2023: A year of progress and collaboration
December 14, 2023 – A message from Roster Relations Liason Paul Welke.
Lawyer Portal login process is changing soon
December 1, 2023 – We are writing to inform you about planned upgrades to the Legal Aid Alberta Lawyer Portal and changes to the login process.
Reminder: End-of-year invoices and payments
November 23, 2023 – 2023 is quickly coming to an end, and with that in mind, below is a reminder of the Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) schedule for the remainder of the year.
How to handle charges for legal documents in Alberta
November 9, 2023 – Roster lawyers handling family cases often require legal documents like marriage certificates, birth certificates, land titles, and personal property registries. This raises a common question: How are Government of Alberta charges billed?
Answers to three common questions about the duty counsel role
October 26, 2023 – While criminal duty counsel (DC) performs damage control to assist accused persons until they can obtain counsel, their role is more complex.
Remember to input your Duty Counsel stats in Lawyer Portal
October 12, 2023 – Statistics collected by staff and roster duty counsel are important and functional.
LAA welcomes new roster members through enhanced onboarding
September 28, 2023 – Enhanced onboarding includes a more detailed application and a brief information exchange.
How to deal with a rejected authorization request
September 28, 2023 – Counsel should then re-submit their request with all the information provided in the earlier request and add the missing data.
Webinar: Setting up your client for success: refugee claims, refugee appeals and judicial reviews
September 28, 2023 – Whether you’re new to immigration law or have been practicing it for years, don’t miss an opportunity to refine your skills and set your client up for success with a refresher on refugee claims, refugee appeals and judicial reviews.
Bail only certificates obtain more hours under new Tariff
September 14, 2023– Bail only certificates will no longer be a maximum of two hours, in accordance with the new Tariff of Fees.
New roster lawyers to attend first ever onboarding interviews
September 14, 2023 – Legal Aid Alberta is pleased to announce that we are welcoming new counsel onto our roster through a new and enhanced onboarding process.
Requesting duty counsel to act as an agent
August 31, 2023 – Lately, we’ve had questions regarding the best process to request duty counsel (DC) to act as an agent on criminal matters.
When change of counsel comes into play
August 31, 2023 – When our roster lawyers need to change counsel, working collaboratively with LAA Certificate and Tariff Officers (CTOs), knowing best practices and where to find valuable resources, can significantly facilitate a smooth transition.
Child representation panel off to a strong start
August 17, 2023 – LAA has established the Child Representation Panel to protect the interests of the children and to express their views and preferences in full in high conflict parenting matters.
Best practices in timekeeping for criminal lawyers
August 17, 2023 – When the files of our criminal lawyers require to provide timesheets upon request through Lawyer Portal or use them to access extra hours under tariff item 11.19, it is important that these timesheets are legible and contain enough information for our Certificate & Tariff Officers (CTOs).
Webinar: How to confidently invoice under the family and civil tariff
August 17, 2023 – Take a journey to explore best practices designed to empower our roster lawyers with the skills and knowledge needed to efficiently bill family certificates under the modernized Legal Aid Alberta Tariff.
What to do with prematurely created Immigration certificates
August 3, 2023 – Legal Aid recognizes that, at times, Immigration certificates may be created prematurely (i.e., where the matter has not yet been referred to the Immigration and Refugee Board).
What to do when your client has new charges
July 20, 2023 – To request additional coverage for a client who already has a certificate and is facing new charges, there are two approaches. Familiarizing yourself with the correct methods and best practices, will greatly streamline your work and benefit your clients.
Make good use of billable tariff 11.10 for Gladue Reports
July 20, 2023 – If you have a client who identifies as Indigenous, First Nations, Métis or Inuit, tariff 11.10 compensates counsel for focusing on individualized sentencing.
Unlock extra hours on summary, indictable and summary files
July 6, 2023 – If you work on summary, indictable and major files, you can benefit from a presumptive maximum of extra hours. They should comprise a detailed timesheet showing that combined hours, associated with the claimed blocks, do not sufficiently cover the time spent on the file.
We kindly request your assistance in maintaining up-to-date client information
July 6, 2023 – As you may be aware, many of our clients lack reliable contact details when initially applying for our services. Please be aware that when an offer is issued by our Contact Centre, it includes all the contact information we currently have on file for that particular client.
Enhancing efficiency by streamlining newsletter delivery for roster lawyers
July 6, 2023 – We are pleased to announce a significant improvement aimed at optimizing our services for roster lawyers. Starting August 1, we will be integrating the Roster Report mailing list with the Lawyer Portal, resulting in a seamless experience for roster lawyers.
New Tariff certificates briefly impacted by software update
June 21, 2023 – Please be advised of a software modernization affecting all certificates issued under the new Tariff from April 1, 2023 onward. For the time being, this change allows no information on the number of hours or dollar amount of disbursements that lawyers are requesting to be brought forward with the request.
Criminal tariffs and fees become billable in isolated and specialty courts
June 21, 2023 – Tariff items 11.16 (Mental Health Court fee) 11.17 (Indigenous Court fee) and 11.18 (Isolated Court fee) aim to recognize the extra time and attention that go into files appearing in certain specialty courtrooms. They also provide an incentive for roster lawyers to ensure that isolated northern locations are adequately served.
Roster lawyer’s guide to hourly case management
June 7, 2023 – With the release of the new Legal Aid Alberta Tariff on April 1, 2023, roster lawyers are no longer able to request substantial additional hours on files. Instead, for most files, the amount of time allotted in the new tariff will compensate you for the time that you’ve reasonably spent on your matter. However, we recognize that there are exceptional cases where the regular tariffs will not provide proper compensation for your work. That is where the hourly case management (HCM) program comes in.
Criminal Tariff 11.01 explained (Court of Justice Fees)
June 7, 2023 – To help you make the most of your time in managing your practice, we’d like to provide some clarification regarding 11.01.
Family lawyers will now receive clients’ documents directly to their email
April 28, 2023 – Effective Monday, May 1, documents associated to a clients’ family matter will be emailed directly to the appointed lawyer by a member of the Administrative Support Team within the Contact Centre.
New modernized LAA tariff now in effect
April 3, 2023 – On April 1, the newly modernized LAA tariff officially launched. Updates to the Lawyer Portal were completed overnight on March 29, and invoicing under the modernized tariff is now up and functioning.
New LAA tariff coming on April 1: Everything you need to know
March 20, 2023 – As we draw closer to the newly modernized LAA tariff implementation date of April 1, 2023, we realize roster lawyers may be wondering what this change will look like and how it will affect them.
Register today for LAA’s Modernized Tariff Implementation Training
February 24, 2023 – As we draw closer to Legal Aid Alberta’s new tariff implementation date of April 1, all roster lawyers are invited to register for one of our upcoming online training sessions to learn about the new LAA criminal tariff structure and how to use it.
Update to allocated hours on family certificates
January 24, 2023 – As of now, all family offers accepted on and after Nov. 28, 2022 are now allocated a minimum of 20 hours.
Register today to attend the first Roster Update Session of 2023
January 12, 2023 – All roster lawyers are invited to join us for the first Roster Update Sessions of 2023 to learn where we are with the LAA Tariff Modernization Project implementation timeline and the new Client Gateway.
