Talk:Legal aid

Newsrelease
I added the tag Newsrelease to the main article although I think this article is close to a blatant advertisement. For example, see the following excerpts from the Intro and first section:
 * "Most liberal democracies consider that it is necessary . . . . To fail to do so would deprive . . . . disadvantage . . . . violate the principles . . . . underfunded . . . . grossly inadequate . . . . supported by people of every political persuasion . . . . generally supported by most people of all political persuasions . . . . every American believes in one overriding principle - Justice Should Not Be Based on What You Can Afford to Pay for It! . . . moral obligation . . . . lofty principle . . . . shirk their moral obligation . . . . Why is this important? . . . Imagine the effect . . . . aspirational goal . . . . earnestly . . . . deserve . . . . seriously address large scale social problems . . . extremely effective . . . . brilliantly conceived . . . . if only someone somewhere could convince . . . . do you now, or have you ever . . ."

 —joeFriday— { talk }  00:16, 9 February 2009 (UTC) I agree with the above statements. The article has the framework of a good article however some of the verbiage that the author(s) have chosen is blatantly subjective and opinion based which invalidates the main points presented. This issue could be fixed if the article was carefully edited to exclude opinion statements and rhetorical questions that do not serve the article. Vivikir (talk) 23:06, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

Legal aid in the U.S.
The opening line under the U.S. heading is a bit odd:


 * "The U.S. has always been less generous than most other First World industrialized democracies in providing counsel to the poor and indigent."

There are hundreds of public interest firms with government funding that provide representation in civil cases, and nearly every large law firm donates thousands of hours of pro bono work. If the funding provided by other First World countries is that much better or effective, then that line would be plausible. But the pieces on the other countries in the article don't indicate as such. --Whitenoise101 03:57, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

redirection from legal services questionable!?
Legal services is not the same as legal aid.


 * I concur. That redirect is just plain wrong.  Legal services refers to the whole range of legal services provided by all kinds of legal professionals and staff in all public and private contexts, not just legal aid!  --Coolcaesar 07:51, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Legal aid for a practising solicitor
Are solicitors in England and Wales legally entitled to apply for legal aid when they are out of practice due to a period of unemployment? The article says nothing to the contrary, so I pose the question. Gilgamesh007 (talk) 16:48, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Addition of external links
There's an unusually bossy little notice at the foot of the article stating that further external links are not to be added. The (solely US) links there don't seem to have any particular sanctity. What on earth was behind that notice, I have no idea; but agreeing with Dhodges and Coolcaesar above I have reinstated a very short list of links to national legal aid schemes and hope they may be allowed to remain! ariwara (talk) 00:42, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Pre-WWII - suing as a pauper in England
In Donoghue v. Stevenson, M'Alister famously sued as a pauper, as did John Joseph Stockdale in Stockdale v. Hansard. Unfortunately, there is no historical treatment in this article of suing as a pauper before modern times. Would be nice if anybody who knew anything could add something, otherwise do some research.Cutler (talk) 09:26, 14 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Five years later there is still a need. There was a form of legal aid system (in anything but name) established under legislation called the Poor Persons Rules in the first decade of the 20th century. I have just augmented the article on Sir Henry Maddocks, a KC who died 1931, who was described in a newspaper obituary as one of the first KCs to act without fee under the Rules. The system set up by Legal Aid Act of 1949 would thus have been a replacement for that early system which depended on the goodwill of lawyers to forgo fees to meet the need (criticized as inadequate in the 1920s). I am trying to find out when the PP Rules were established.Cloptonson (talk) 09:23, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Civil Law legal aid?
The only countries given specific subheadings are all common-law countries. The vast majority of the world's legal systems are civil (Roman) law systems. I invite people knowledgeable in such systems to weigh in on the subject. I live in a common-law jurisdiction and so cannot be of much help myself.MarritzN (talk) 20:09, 25 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Good luck. Unfortunately, as I've discovered in the course of researching Lawyer and noted on numerous Wikipedia talk pages, the problem is that sociology in general and sociology of the professions in particular is predominantly an American enterprise, mostly because most countries lack the socioeconomic base, cultural foundation, and/or political will to develop large university sociology departments.  The result is that the most of the literature on international comparative sociology of the legal professions has been published by American researchers with minor contributions from elsewhere.  The same also holds true for legal aid, a subset of legal practice. --Coolcaesar (talk) 05:47, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Legal Aid Ontario
This section really needs some extensive cleaning up and should ideally match that on the Legal Aid Ontario page. There are some very good points here, but a fair amount of this information is either false or not verified. Statement such as "Legal Aid Ontario has embarked on a restructuring program, which aims to shrink the number of community legal clinics in Ontario" are one of many that have absolutely no truth to them, and have existed for considerable time without ever being contested. Lawyer in training (talk) 13:36, 29 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I have removed the content for Legal Aid Ontario and linked to its main article until other Canadian legal aid agencies are added Lawyer in training (talk) 14:37, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

legal literacy and/or legal awareness
I am about to begin rough sketch for article at my userspace User:Mahitgar/legal awareness on subject 'legal literacy' and/or 'legal awareness'.Requesting openion What is preferable  primary article name legal literacy or legal awareness ;personally I prefer term 'legal awareness' being broader term. You are well come to contribute and improve proposed article legal awareness.Mahitgar (talk) 05:14, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

legal awareness
You are well come to contribute and improve article legal awareness.

Mahitgar (talk) 12:24, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 3 one external links on Legal aid. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20121010063707/http://www.justice.govt.nz/services/legal-aid to http://www.justice.govt.nz/services/legal-aid
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20150624162917/http://www.cba.org/cba/advocacy/legalaid/history.aspx to http://www.cba.org/cba/advocacy/legalaid/history.aspx
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20121701061400/http://law.gsu.edu/ccunningham/fall03/India%20-%20Constitution-Part4.htm to http://law.gsu.edu/ccunningham/fall03/India%20-%20Constitution-Part4.htm

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England and Wales section out of date
I have inserted the relevant template because the section doesn't reflect the changes to funding and access in recent years, particularly in relation to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_Aid,_Sentencing_and_Punishment_of_Offenders_Act_2012. 185.81.192.220 (talk) 12:08, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Why don't you just update the section? Magnolia677 (talk) 22:13, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

I removed this marker after reading through and checking the links provided. 185.81.192.220 (talk) 16:45, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 3 external links on Legal aid. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Corrected formatting/usage for http://law.gsu.edu/ccunningham/fall03/India%20-%20Constitution-Part4.htm
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070710041550/http://www.clasp.org/publications/legal_aid_history_2007.pdf to http://www.clasp.org/publications/legal_aid_history_2007.pdf
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080212192811/http://www.justice.gc.ca/en/ps/pb/arr/legal_aid.html to http://www.justice.gc.ca/en/ps/pb/arr/legal_aid.html

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External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 3 external links on Legal aid. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20160303221210/http://lawhandbook.com.au/ to http://lawhandbook.com.au/
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110828153739/http://faculty.law.ubc.ca/ilac/Papers/04%20currie.html to http://faculty.law.ubc.ca/ilac/Papers/04%20currie.html
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20160729091927/http://nalsa.gov.in/actrules.html to http://nalsa.gov.in/actrules.html

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