Last year marked the Law Foundation of Ontario’s 50th anniversary — making that year’s report a milestone paper in the life of the organization. In their joint introductory message, chair Linda Rothstein and CEO Lisa Cirillo stated that 2024 represented the organization’s “largest single granting year.”
“The best anniversary gift was our record-high granting,” they state. “In 2024, we approved $58.9 [million] in grants, more than double our previous highest granting year in 2019.”
According to its website, the LFO, established in 1974 under Ontario’s Law Society Act, “receives and uses the interest on lawyers’ … mixed trust accounts to support legal education, legal research, legal aid, and law libraries” in the province.
It also aims to increase access to justice via its Class Proceedings Fund.
The fund, established in 1992, “provides cost assistance in class actions.” Specifically, it gives financial support to “approved” class action plaintiffs for legal expenses.
The fund does two things: one, it provides financial support to approved class action plaintiffs for legal “disbursements.” Two, it indemnifies losing plaintiffs for costs “that may be awarded against them in funded proceedings.”
This support “enables individuals to use the law to improve their lives and the lives of many others,” states the LFO.
“Without it, potential class action plaintiffs could be discouraged from pursuing their claims. This is because the personal benefit to them might be quite small and they would risk exposure to significant costs awards against them if the lawsuit is unsuccessful.”
The LFO’s Class Proceedings Committee decides whether applicants will receive funding. Eligibility is based on things such as the strength of the applicant’s case, the scope of public interest, the likelihood of certification and the availability of funds at the time of application.
Since the fund was established, it has funded more than $62 million in support of 234 class actions “for groups seeking justice, such as workers, consumers, residential ‘school’ survivors, victims of institutional abuse, prisoners, and other public interest litigants.”
“Few of these cases could have existed without the Class Proceedings Fund and its ability to assume the significant financial risk,” states the annual report. “The funding of these cases has also assisted in advancing the law in these areas.”
In 2024, the LFO’s Class Proceedings Committee approved $7.7 million in class action funding. The report details that the LFO funded 14 new cases and provided “supplementary funding” in 28 ongoing cases in 2024.
Remissa Hirji, Law Foundation of Ontario
“[The] support we provide is for expenses necessary in prosecuting the class action,” said Hirji. “Those are things like — expert evidence tends to be the largest, but also [for] things like administration costs, court filing fees, travel expenses — if, for example, the lawyers have to either travel somewhere or they need to fly their experts out for cross examinations or discoveries.”
The funding, she said, plays a part in “levelling … the playing field.”
“Oftentimes, class actions are brought against large defendants — governments or large, multibillion-dollar corporations — who, in theory, have significant resources, whereas plaintiffs and plaintiff-side firms generally don’t, so we provide that kind of support so they can focus on running the case, and they’re not necessarily worried about, oh, this expert is really expensive, maybe we shouldn't go ahead, even though they are the better expert and would allow the case to succeed.”
The report also notes that a little over $8 million was returned in the form of funding being repaid or “cancelled” in class proceedings.
“When a case is successfully resolved, the Class Proceedings Fund receives reimbursement of all funding we provided to the plaintiff,” Hirji later said in an email. “This is usually accounted for in a court order approving a settlement for instance. Once a case has been resolved (either positively or negatively), if there is any approved funding remaining (i.e. that has not been spent), we will ‘cancel’ the funding, which essentially returns it back to the larger fund so it can be used for other funded cases.”
According to the report, the LFO awarded $1.1 million for “[c]ost awards in favour of defendants” in 2024.
As for other forms of funding given in 2024, the LFO approved new three-year “Catalyst” grants totalling $45.5 million for a current cohort of 25 organizations.
The Catalyst fund provides multiyear “core” funding to “established” non-profit organizations working to increase access to justice. Among the recipients were the Canadian Forum on Civil Justice, Community Legal Education Ontario, Aboriginal Legal Services and the Métis Nation of Ontario Advocacy Program.
The LFO also increased its “Responsive” granting by around 41 per cent, approving $7.4 million for 40 grants in 2024. Recipients included the Assembly of First Nations, the Black Law Students’ Association of Canada, the Canadian Legal Information Institute, the Hamilton Community Legal Clinic, the Human Rights Legal Support Centre, Northern Justice Watch and the Sexual Assault Support Centre of Waterloo Region.
“Strategic” grants, described in the report as “time-limited” grants targeting “specific priority areas,” were awarded to the Black Opportunity Fund Justice Grant Program and the University of Ottawa’s Civil Law Section faculty for its tracing the history of the Supreme Court of Canada.
The report also recognized University of Toronto professor John Borrows, winner of the LFO’s Guthrie Award. The report describes Borrows as “one of the world’s leading scholars and educators on Indigenous law,” and one that “has transformed the way that academic and legal sectors understand and intersect with Indigenous law.”
CORRECTION: This story and its headline have been updated to correct the name of the organization. We apologize for the error.
If you have any information, story ideas or news tips for Law 360 Canada, please contact Terry Davidson at t.davidson@lexisnexis.ca or 905-415-5899.