Across Canada for many\u00a0years the terms law clerk, legal assistant and paralegal generally meant the same thing. There have been other terms out there as well like Conveyancer and Notary Public.<\/p>\n

Most provincial governments began\u00a0the policy of allowing people to represent themselves in lower courts like small claims, administrative\u00a0tribunals and traffic court. But they\u00a0included in the legislation the right that these people could have an ‘agent’ speak for them. In these circumstances people who\u00a0were not lawyers began offering their services to people. In many provinces the term ‘independent paralegal’ began to be used to describe these people to distinguish them from\u00a0law clerks or legal assistants who worked for and under lawyers.<\/p>\n

In Ontario, after much consultation and debate beginning in the 80’s, it was decided that ‘paralegals’ would be licenced in a manner similar to lawyers\u00a0with the areas of permissible practice allowed to paralegals carefully defined. Paralegal became a regulated profession in Ontario as of 1 May 2007 with the Law Society of Upper Canada as the regulator. Paralegals are permitted to handle:<\/p>\n

\n
• \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Small Claims Court matters,<\/li>\n
• \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0landlord\/tenant matters,<\/li>\n
• \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Statutory Accident Benefit claims and<\/li>\n
• \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0insurance files.<\/li>\n
• \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0WSIB hearings,<\/li>\n
• \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Employment Insurance appeals,<\/li>\n
• \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Highway Traffic Act offences,<\/li>\n
• \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0disability appeals,<\/li>\n
• \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0appearances before all Boards and Tribunals and<\/li>\n
• \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Immigration Services as of 30 June 2011 when Bill C-35 came into force<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

  In Ontario, persons who work under the supervision of a Paralegal or a lawyer are referred to as Law Clerks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Across Canada for many\u00a0years the terms law clerk, legal assistant and paralegal generally meant the same thing. There have been other terms out there as well like Conveyancer and Notary Public. Most provincial governments began\u00a0the policy of allowing people to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hartlegaleducation.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hartlegaleducation.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hartlegaleducation.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hartlegaleducation.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hartlegaleducation.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/hartlegaleducation.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86,"href":"https:\/\/hartlegaleducation.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84\/revisions\/86"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hartlegaleducation.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hartlegaleducation.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hartlegaleducation.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}