This is a question I answer during every consultation, even if it isn’t asked directly. Because the answer is deceptively simple but still very challenging.
No one needs a lawyer to have a parole hearing. Not like you need a lawyer if you’re going to Court. While someone can self-represent in Court it’s an extremely bad idea to do so and it’s safe advice to say that everyone should bring a lawyer if they possibly can. Parole, however, is meant to be something that people can do on their own – like going before the Landlord and Tenant Board, or the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal, or similar. You can do it on your own. Whether or not you should is a more complex question.
The bottom line truth is that some clients would probably be fine on their own, provided nothing comes along that complicates their situation and nothing unexpected happens. There are files where I get to the end of a parole hearing, everything is done, and in all honesty I can say they likely would have gotten parole even without help. And also, to be frank, there are hearings that I lose and in some cases there’s simply no solution to that. I don’t have a 100% success rate and if any lawyer tells you they never lose you should probably go find a lawyer who’ll tell you the truth. Needless to say, a client can lose on their own also.
The difficulty being, I can’t possibly know in advance if a client’s situation is going to stay simple or turn out to be hopeless or if it’ll be something in between where the right representation and help may very well take a situation that’s heading towards denial and help the client get parole instead. I know for certain there are cases where the work we do makes all the difference in the world, just as there are cases where the result would likely be the same no matter what. But we can’t know which case it will be until we get to the end.
So, that’s what I tell clients, and it’s up to them to make up their own minds. I sympathize with the challenge of making this decision, especially if money is an issue at the end of an already long and expensive case. All the same, in my own life, I understand the motive to hire a professional to do something right even if you suspect you could do it yourself as long as things don’t get complicated and nothing goes wrong. When the job is important enough, you may not want to take that chance. Which is why I stay very busy, even after I tell each and every client they don’t really have to hire a lawyer if they don’t want to.
