Happy 30th!

[attach]2176[/attach]A legal services clinic that started in the basement of the Flemingdon Park shopping plaza is celebrating 30 years of advocacy in the community.

Flemingdon Community Legal Services was established to provide low-income families in the neighbourhood with legal aid, advice and advocacy.

“The legal clinic came out of activism by a group of community leaders in Flemingdon Park back in the late 1970s,” said executive director Marjorie Hiley.

With funding from Legal Aid Ontario, the organization opened to the public in 1980.

Since then, the clinic has settled into a cozy office building on The Donway West.

“We are having a party and it’s not going to be formal in the sense of speeches, but a celebration for 30 years of service to the community,” said Hiley.

Hiley has been running the clinic since 1984, along with two licensed paralegals that have been with the organization since its establishment.

The clinic consists of a team of eight people, including lawyers, volunteers and law students. There is plenty of office space, giving employees enough space and privacy to do their work. There are also two boardrooms where employees meet with clients in a private and quiet setting.

Hiley admitted it can get hectic in the office with the heavy workload.

“Getting new lawyers in always gives us extra energy,” she said. “We get 4, 500 clients a year and that’s just looking at giving them basic advice or taking on their case and making it a file.”

Due to the never-ending workload and budgeted funds from Legal Aid Ontario the clinic has had to narrow its scope on what legal cases to handle.

“We do cases regarding landlords and keeping tenants in their apartments, problems with unemployment insurance, (we) help people trying to get Canada pension, and people having problems with the welfare system.”

Hiley takes on clients with immigration issues.

“I deal with people who are refugee claimants and people who might be illegal here and want to change their status,” she said. “It is never a dull moment.”

There are times when the clinic has to turn down clients due to the nature of their legal requests, such as workers compensation issues, wrongful dismissal and real estate issues, to name a few.

When the clinic cannot help a particular client Hiley said they would refer them to another resource or clinic.

“People would like us to do much more and we would like to do it too, but I don’t have the staffing.”

Hiley is grateful that funding has not been cut by Legal Aid Ontario which is what keeps the organization going. Clients receive services from the clinic free of charge if they are eligible.

It has been a great experience being able to serve the community in this way, Hiley said.

“When you make your career really doing poverty law, you’re doing it on community basis and not just as a government employee,” she said. “That makes it wonderful.”

The 30th anniversary party is Sept. 30 at Thorncliffe Park Elementary School with a start time of 6:30 p.m.