Prince George, B.C.- The Law Society of B.C. is dedicated to ensuring people have affordable access to the courts and one of the issues it has been addressing is the ever growing shortage of lawyers in rural B.C.

Just as was the case with the medical profession, it is becoming increasingly difficult to encourage graduates to set up their   practice in a rural setting. There is also the issue of a greying profession in need of succession planning.

President of the  Law Society, Bruce LeRose says  it is important that residents in rural B.C.  have equal access  “It would be disastrous if  people in small communities  no longer had the same rights and privileges as those in urban centres when it comes to access to legal services in a timely way and access to the courts.”

The Law Society has been working on a program   which sees some law students placed in rural settings for a period. That program has been in place for three years and during that time, more than 55% of the students have gone back to a smaller community to practice law. 

The Society has also pressed to allow para-legals to handle some legal issues such as business transactions, buying and selling of items.   Para legals would be required to work under the supervision of a lawyer. The Society is   working with the Provincial and Supreme Courts to try and have both levels of court grant para legals “right of audience” in those court rooms, in other words, to allow a para legal the right to represent a person in court on certain issues.

But what of the possibility of developing a law program at UNBC? LeRose is on side with that idea “Of course post secondary education is funded by the Provincial Government, but we do encourage the expansion of law schools because we realize that truly is the answer to the access to legal services problem.”  

The Law Society has worked with Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops in the development of its law program. It is the first law school to open in Canada in 35 years and had 85 students enrolled for the first semester last September.   The TRU program is based on the Northern Medical program model which was developed by the University of Northern B.C. .

LeRose says the local legal profession can help make it happen at UNBC, “Get your legal profession engaged. It was the engagement of the legal community in Kamloops that ultimately convinced the Government that it was a wise decision to spend those resources, ‘cause we all know Government resources are limited, but it was a wise decision to include Kamloops as a law school. So there will be 85 new law students in two years hence, 85 new lawyers who will be able to service communities in the interior.”