Legal Aid Research Series Court Side Study of Adult Unrepresented Accused in the Provincial Criminal Courts Part 1: Overview Report

Figure 2.1 Site Selection Criteria

Sites with different levels of resourcing of legal aid (i.e., from more restrictive to less restrictive eligibility criteria).
Sites with different delivery mechanisms for legal aid (staff, private bar, expanded duty counsel).
Clustered sites that would allow for controlled comparisons on related issues (e.g., mix of service approaches) Sites that operate both a base court and one or more circuit courts that operate from that base, particularly those which serve particular groups of clientele (e.g., rural, Aboriginal).
Sites that offer economies of scale, including opportunities to use data or findings from related studies.
Sites where other related studies have been done or are currently underway (e.g., the DOJ detention project in B.C. or the recent Commissions and Task Forces in Ontario).
Large volume sites with a variety of visible minorities
Sites that reflect a range of economic well-being in the community (city or province).
Sites that have expressed particular interest in the issue.
Sites that have identified particular problems with unrepresented accused.
Sites that, together, represent all of Canada’s main regions.
Sites with sufficient numbers of special groups of interest.
Sites within which data collection is feasible.