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.
How to ask for help
If you would like assistance from Downtown Legal Services, you can call our intake line at (416) 978-6447 during our hours of operation or you can complete our online intake form. We will respond to you within 3 business days to discuss whether we might be able to help you.
In order to figure out whether we can help, we will need to ask some personal questions. All of this information will be kept strictly confidential. We will also ask whether you require accommodations in order to receive services.
This is not an emergency service. We will respond as soon as possible, and within three business days, not including weekends and holidays.
Completing this form does not make you a client of the clinic. We will need to review your case and conduct an intake interview to figure out whether we may be able to help.
If you are already on a waiting list for services, you should not complete the intake form.
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.