WHAT: The Legal Aid Watch (L.A.W.) is an email network of legal aid lawyers. The Watch generates "horror stories" about what the current limited legal aid situation can actually mean to real people. WHY The Watch was created: to focus on governmental responsibility to improve access to justice to maintain ongoing pressure for improvements to legal aid to raise the profile of legal aid and its importance to portray the need for legal aid and the work of legal aid lawyers in a more sympathetic and accurate light in the eyes of the public to demonstrate the CBA's ongoing commitment to access to justice to establish the CBA as a clearinghouse for information about any changes to legal aid across the country. WHO: Lawyers in the Watch represent a geographical cross-section and all types of legal aid practice. These lawyers make a commitment of sending a regular email reporting any legal aid "horror stories" to CBA National Office. HOW: Lawyers in the Watch provide updates on improvements and deterioration to legal aid in their respective regions, and offer any specific examples they have recently encountered about what inadequate legal aid has actually meant to an individual or individuals. A story is then selected and used as the basis for a regular open letter to MPs, MPPs, legal aid plans, and newspapers. We are continuously developing our roster of legal aid lawyers in all the different parts of the country. If you're interested, please write to Legal.Aid.Watch@cba.org
