Regarding legal aid.. I know someone who got into trouble.. he was told to get a lawyer.. if the person qualifies financially or otherwise for legal aid assistance, the person is given a list of lawyers who accept legal aid cases, and from that list, a lawyer is chosen by the accused. That list doesn't seem to be a published list, but someone who had been in a situation might know who is on the list in a given area.
I'm not sure how it would work as far as legal aid... if a person resides in one jurisdiction, but is accused and attending court in another jurisdiction.. as far as I know, the list is provided according to who accepts legal aid in *that* particular jurisdiction, but yet I believe that both MS and DM chose lawyers from outside of the 'greater Hamilton area'. There would be all kinds of travel considerations on top of the usual legal expenses. moo.
In regard to qualifying financially, the income levels seem really low before one is able to get legal aid assistance. But yet if someone is jailed while they wait, they aren't able to continue making even a meager income, so how would anyone be able to pay, unless they had a large savings? I got the impression that even if a person doesn't qualify financially, that legal aid refusal can be overridden if the charges are of a serious enough nature.
Some lawyers aren't signed up to accept legal aid cases, but I'm not sure if say one of those lawyers wanted to accept one legal aid case in particular, he can choose to quickly sign up or not, and then just take the one case?
Some lawyers live at the courthouse, and take all legal aid cases, in and out like a factory, striking deals even when the accuseds don't want to plea. The less time spent on each case, the more money in those lawyers' pockets = good for them, not-necessarily-so-good for the accuseds.