Our History

Our History

In 1969, lawyers in British Columbia did something that had never been done before in North America. They introduced a new model for funding access to justice, one that was independent from government, sustained by the legal profession itself, and built to last. More than half a century later, that model has spread across Canada and the United States, and the Law Foundation of BC remains at the forefront of this work.

How It Started

BC lawyers introduced the visionary concept of a law foundation to the province and the continent in the late 1960s. Legislation was passed that made interest on lawyers’ pooled trust accounts available to fund work on legal aid, legal education, law reform, legal research, and law libraries in BC.  

In our first year, income was just over $50,000, and we made $5,000 in grants.

By 1986, there were law foundations in every province and territory in Canada, and in one form or another, in nearly every jurisdiction in the US. What started in BC had become a continent-wide model for funding access to justice, independently and sustainably, through the legal profession itself. 

How We’ve Evolved

Over the years, the Law Foundation has strategically responded to the changing times and needs of the communities we support. When publicly funded legal clinic services ended in 2002, we worked to fill the gap by building a network of non-lawyer legal advocates. This network provided core legal needs services for low-income people in communities around the province. 

Because of its overall success in providing access to justice for many people, we expanded the network repeatedly. In this way, the Law Foundation of BC has grown to play a significant role as the backbone funder of civil legal aid in our province. Every year, the majority of our funding goes towards direct, front-line legal advocacy services. 

Between 2014 and 2019, we expanded our funding from 52 legal advocacy programs to 79. From 2019 onward, that level of funding has continued to grow.

How It’s Going

Our grantmaking capacity has grown significantly since the early days, and we continue to evolve as an organization that helps shape and strengthen access to justice in BC. 

In more recent years, we have turned our attention to how we do our work. The funds we receive are connected with private legal transactions in communities across the landmass of BC. We consider it our responsibility to build good relationships with First Nations and to invest in initiatives that expand access to justice for Indigenous people in BC. This responsibility informs our approach and extends to all the communities we work with as we continually find ways to centre community voices in our grantmaking work. 

We are innovating and testing new approaches to grantmaking, aiming to reduce barriers for communities and to be a proactive funder that finds ways to expand access to justice for underserved and equity-denied groups. 

Since 1969, we have distributed almost $1 billion to support important law-related programs in BC.

Our commitment is to keep evolving to meet the changing needs of communities. We will always invest in programs that advance the public good and narrow the access to justice gap, without relying on public finances.