International Law

Refugee Roulette

By immlawyer

I was reading an article by Edward C. Corrigan in ImmQuest, Vol 4. Issue 11 November 2008. Edward discussed legal aid and refugee claims. Ontario's Legal Aid Certificate provides a fixed rate per hour (depending on the experience of counsel) and may be as high as $96.95/hour. Corrigan notes however that overhead in a law firm is about $100/hr and as a result, counsel typically lose money in handling legal aid matters.

He also made a point regarding the quality of representation and quoted a very interesting article published in the Stanford Law Review.

Entitled "Refugee Roulette: Disparities in Asylum Adjudication" it indicates that the success rate for unrepresented asylum seekers (in the US anyway) was a little more than 16%; represented individuals were successful over 45% of the time; and those represented by 'qualified, specialized lawyers' varied between 89 and 96%.

Full post as published by Canadian Immigration Blawg on November 13, 2008 (boomark / email).