Our Legal Referral Service helps British Columbians find a suitable legal professional to resolve their legal problem, or alternatively points them to helpful resources.
Any BC resident can call us at 604-687-3221 or self-book online to consult with a lawyer or a notary for 15 to 30 minutes for free (visit our Legal Referral Service website for details).
Legal Referral Service
You can receive 15 to 30 minutes of free consultation with a expert lawyer, notary or designated paralegal by following these steps:
- Call our Legal Referral Service telephone line at 604-687-3221 from 8:30am to 4:30pm, Monday to Friday, or self-book online anytime.
- Identify your legal problem. If you're self-booking online, you'll need to pay a $25 booking fee. If you're calling our LRS Coordinators, you'll need to pay a $25 booking fee only if your household earned a total of $100,000 or more in the past year.
- Our LRS Coordinators or online booking system will then provide you with the name and contact information of a suitable lawyer, notary or paralegal to help you.
- If schedules allow, your assigned legal professional will provide you with 15 to 30 minutes of free consultation to determine your legal needs and how you can serve them.
- If you’d like further help from your assigned legal professional, you can retain them at an agreeable rate of charge. There's no obligation for either party to continue after the free consultation.
Please don't confuse our Legal Referral Service with legal aid. In BC, legal aid is provided exclusively by Legal Aid BC to British Columbians on very low income who qualify for their services.
Everyone Legal Clinic (lower cost representation services)
You can also receive an online referral to a supervised articling clinician at our Everyone Legal Clinic if you:
- Have a family, tenancy, employment, wills/estates, civil or consumer law issue
- Have the ability to pay for the clinician’s fixed-fee representation services
- Are willing to work with the clinician by telephone or videoconference
- Can communicate in English
If you meet all of the above criteria, you can call our Client Line (778-200-4478) to schedule an initial meeting with a clinician by videoconference or telephone. Our articling clinicians work under the supervision of practising lawyers, and provide legal services on a lower-cost, fixed-fee basis.