Are you eligible?
Downtown Legal Services is funded by Legal Aid Ontario, meaning that we must follow their rules about whom we can help.
To be eligible for free services from us, you must:
- Live in the City of Toronto, AND;
- Either have a low income, or be a current full-time student at the University of Toronto who has not opted out of paying the DLS levy.
Whether your income is low enough to qualify depends on several factors, like the source of your income and your family size. We will need to ask you some questions about this during the application process.
We can only represent clients in areas of law that we practice, and only if we have a student caseworker who is available to assist you.
Intake closures
Because all of our caseworkers are law students working under the supervision of lawyers, there are some times during the year when are not able to offer intake (generally when our students are in exams). During these times of year, our website will indicate that our intake is closed.
August-September Intake Closure
Our intake unit is closed while we train our new cohort of student caseworkers. Intake will reopen on October 5, 2026- we look forward to speaking with you then.