Legal aid in Lebanon

Concisely stated, the consultant has found that although the Bar Associations have demonstrated a commitment to the provision of legal aid to the indigent, and administer their legal aid programs in compliance with statutory mandates, those programs: (1) lack adequate orientation, training, case monitoring, and supervision protocols to ensure the provision of quality representation to legal aid clients; (2) must compete for limited resources and governance attention with other important and beneficial programs administered by the Associations; (3) are limited by inadequate and non-sustainable funding sources; and (4) suffer from a lack of sufficient administrative support and modern information technology. Based upon the findings, the consultant has made several detailed recommendations to achieve sustainable quality legal aid programs in Lebanon: (1) the preparation of thorough needs assessments to ascertain the scope of the potential demand for legal aid and the types of cases or sub-populations with the greatest need; (2) the creation of committees of experienced attorneys to monitor legal aid cases and provide supervision and mentoring of legal aid lawyers; (3) the recruitment of lawyers experienced in criminal and civil cases to participate in the legal aid programs; (4) the creation of a pilot project to support the evolution to more stable funding through the government; (5) the development of a legal aid orientation and training curriculum and certificate; (6) the creation of pilot projects in collaboration with NGO"s; (7) the inclusion of legal aid courses and information in judicial training programs; and (8) the provision of adequate administrative support and information technology to the legal aid programs. The recommendations are not presented in a priority order. However, because the results of the recommended needs assessments will inform the implementation of several other recommendations, they should be viewed as a high priority, along with the recommendations that go to the monitoring of legal aid cases and the supervision of legal aid lawyers. (Author abstract)