Frequently asked questions about legal aid

No.

A calculation will be made based on your income, expenses and assets that will determine the deductible percentage.

If the deductible percentage is 0, the attorney’s fee will be paid out of state funds in full. However, if the calculation determines that your deductible percentage is 20, 30, 40, 55 or 75 per cent, you will pay the amount determined by this percentage out of the sum based on the number of hours spent on your case by the public legal aid attorney. The hourly fee of all public legal aid attorneys is EUR 110 per hour. Regardless of your deductible, costs such as court fees, the costs of evidence and the costs of any translations and interpreters that may be necessary are included in the legal aid free of charge.

If your assets mean that you will pay a supplementary deductible, you may even need to pay the fee of your attorney in full. Read more on the ‘What legal aid costs’ page.

A legal aid charge of EUR 70 is collected from everyone who receives legal aid, except for those whose deductible percentage is 0.

If you are notified that the legal aid office cannot accept you as a client due to being disqualified, you can either contact another legal aid office yourself, or you can ask the disqualified legal aid office to ask another legal aid office if they can accept you as a client.

The disqualification may be due to many different factors, but because of the secrecy obligation, the staff at the legal aid office usually cannot tell you what causes the disqualification in detail.Situations involving disqualification have been listed in the Finnish Bar Association’s Code of Conduct for Attorneys-at-Law; public legal aid attorneys are also obliged to follow the Code. For example, public legal aid attorneys:

• cannot accept a task from two or more clients in the same case, if the interests or rights of the clients in the case are in conflict or if there is a clear possibility of a conflict of interest.
• cannot accept a task against a current or former client, if accepting the task violates the obligation of loyalty towards the new client or the current or former client who is an opposing party, unless the clients consent to the attorney accepting the task.

This means that if your opposing party is currently or has at some point been a client of the legal aid office, the previous client relationship may prevent the legal aid office from being able to accept you as a client. Due to the obligation of non-disclosure and secrecy, this may also apply to situations, in which your opposing party is a client of financial and debt counselling or guardianship services of the guardianship office of the same area.

According to the Code of Conduct for Attorneys-at-Law of the Finnish Bar Association, in some cases the client may consent to the same legal aid office taking care of the case for both parties. This is not recommended, however, because circumstances may change or lead to a situation, in which the public legal aid attorney has to stop dealing with your case in the middle of the process.

Public legal aid attorneys cannot accept a task if they, a person close to them or a person working in the same office or office community has a financial or personal connection to the task that may hinder the ability of the public legal aid attorney to supervise the best interests of the client with full efficiency. Such disqualification may also affect all public legal aid attorneys in the same legal aid office so that they become disqualified to take care of your case. For example, filing a complaint against one public legal aid attorney with the Chancellor of Justice, the Parliamentary Ombudsman or the Disciplinary Board of the Finnish Bar Association means that the other public legal aid attorneys in the same office cannot be considered qualified, and therefore they cannot accept your case, either.

The Code of Conduct for Attorneys-at-Law of the Finnish Bar Association does not include a complete list of situations involving disqualification; instead, you need to remember that being qualified is a fundamental value, and therefore all factors that may lead to a public legal aid attorney being disqualified will be taken into account when assessing disqualification..

Only the expenses listed in the Government Decree on Legal Aid can be taken into account when making the decision on legal aid. Section 2 of the Decree in question states that the withholding taxes or advance taxes and the statutory charges payable by employees are deducted from the monthly income. Reasonable housing expenses, day care fees, maintenance payments, payments in an enforcement procedure and payments in accordance with a debt adjustment payment schedule are also deducted from the income.

In addition, the section in question also states that if there are dependents in the household of the applicant, a deduction of EUR 300 for each child is made from the income. If dependents have regular income sufficient for their own maintenance, no deduction is made for the dependent’s part. A deduction may also be made for a child who has turned 18 if the applicant provides maintenance for the child in reality.

No deductions other than the ones listed in the Decree mentioned above can be taken into account when making the decision on legal aid.‍

The best way to reserve an appointment at a legal aid office is through the e-services. You can log in to the service with online banking codes, a mobile certificate or a certificate card. If you cannot log in to the e-services you can either call the legal aid office or visit the legal aid office in person.

Please note that an appointment with a public legal aid attorney will only be reserved for you after your right to receive legal aid has been verified.

The information requested in the electronic legal aid application is based on the Legal Aid Act. Legal aid cannot be granted if you do not fill in all sections of the application.

If you are applying for legal aid through the e-services, make sure that you have the following documents at hand, in which you can find the information requested:

Income

• Regular earned income: most recent payslip or salary statement
• Irregular earned income: payslips for a period of six months or a salary statement
• Pension income: account statement or the most recent document from a pension institution indicating the amount of pension
• Unemployment, maternity, sickness, accident, home care and/or housing allowance and/or student financial aid: account statement, most recent notification of payment
• Income from business activities or self-employment: certificate by an accountant, most recent profit and loss account or tax certificate
• Child maintenance payments and child maintenance allowance: account statement or child maintenance agreement
• Interest, dividend, rental and other capital income: account statement or other sufficient documentation
• Child benefits: no receipt necessary
• Other taxable income: sufficient documentation

Expenditure

• Taxes: payslip or tax card
• Rent/maintenance charge: payment receipt, account statement, rental agreement or housing allowance decision
• Maintenance costs of a detached house: in practice, a maximum of EUR 250 per month can be accepted without a separate clarification; if the costs are higher, payment receipts for a period of six months, for example, must be presented
• Mortgage interest: account statement
• Day care charges, maintenance payments: payment receipt or account statement
• Debt adjustment payments: statement of payment in accordance with the debt adjustment schedule (payment receipt/account statement)
• Enforcement costs: payslip, payment receipt or account statement
• Other costs, such as medication costs, commuting expenses or consumer credit, cannot be deducted.

Assets

The family’s habitual residence, a typical holiday residence or car are not taken into account as assets, if their value is reasonable in relation to the size and needs of the family. If the value of the assets mentioned above is not reasonable, a statement on the assets must be presented.Assets to be taken into account include e.g.:

• Funds: passbook or account statement
• Real property: tax certificate
• Shares in a housing company: tax certificate
• Shares in a decedent’s estate or general partnership: tax certificate
• Means of transport: tax certificate
• Investments, such as shares or fund units: extract from book entry certificate, finance company statement.

Liabilities related to the assets mentioned above are deducted from the fair value of the assets..

Before applying for legal aid, you must check if you have legal expenses insurance and if so, whether it will cover the costs of dealing with your case.

Legal expenses insurance is a type of insurance against loss or damage, intended to compensate legal costs incurred due to trials and certain comparable issues. Legal expenses insurance covers legal and trial costs due to using the services of an attorney-at-law in civil or criminal cases and petitions defined in the terms of insurance in more detail. The dispute or other event insured against must have occurred while the insurance was valid.

Typically, legal expenses insurance is a part of:

• household effects insurance
• property, boat, forest or travel insurance
• insurance offered through trade unions
• automobile insurance
• business insurance
• farm insurance.

You can check the insurance policy to find out if one of your insurance policies mentioned above includes legal expenses insurance, or you can ask the insurance company about it. Your insurance company can also tell you if your legal expenses insurance will cover the costs of handling your case.

As a rule, legal aid will not be granted if you have legal expenses insurance that covers the costs of handling your case.

If you would have the right to receive legal aid without a deductible, meaning that your deductible percentage would be 0, you have the right to receive legal aid for the deductible of the legal expenses insurance. In this case, your attorney’s fee will be paid partially out of the legal expenses insurance and partially out of state funds.

Yes, you can.

There are a total of 23 legal aid offices, located all around Finland. If you wish, you can contact any of the legal aid offices. Nevertheless, it is usually the easiest to use the services of the legal aid office closest to your place of residence.

Contact information of legal aid offices.

When you call a legal aid office, a legal aid secretary will answer the phone. With the legal aid secretary, you can discuss if brief, general telephone advice from a public legal aid attorney would be enough for you. If so, the legal aid secretary will record the necessary information about your matter and forward a call request to the public legal aid attorney; depending on the workload, the attorney will call you within the period stated by the legal aid secretary (usually a few days). You can receive brief, general advice like this without a legal aid decision.

You can also talk with the legal aid secretary about whether your case requires a longer consultation with a public legal aid attorney. If you are entitled to legal aid, you will receive a client appointment with a public legal aid attorney. The client appointment may be either a telephone appointment or a meeting at the legal aid office. In the meeting, you can discuss your case in detail and you will receive help and advice in your case, if the public legal aid attorney believes that the attorney will be able to help you.

Legal aid secretaries can also advise you to turn to a different authority, if they find that another party such as the Consumer Disputes Board may be better able to

If your case is processed in court, you can choose either a public legal aid attorney, a private attorney or a licensed legal counsel as your attorney. On our website, you can find links to both the search service of the Finnish Bar Association as well as a list of legal counsels. Using different search criteria, you can find a suitable attorney for yourself for the trial.

If you believe that you are entitled to legal aid in a case being processed in court, your private attorney will file the legal aid application on your behalf.

According to the rules of the Finnish Bar Association, a case must always be handled in the way that is the most beneficial to the client, meaning that if you have the right to receive legal aid, the attorney must inform you about it. If you are not sure if you have the right to receive legal aid or not and you have turned to a private attorney, you can ask your attorney to investigate the matter.

You need to find a private attorney yourself who consents to handling the assignment. In order to assign an advocate or licensed legal counsel to handle your case, the legal aid office needs the consent of the advocate or legal counsel.

The Ministry of Justice does not have any authority over the decisions of legal aid offices, and the Ministry cannot assign an attorney to anyone.‍

Legal aid offices handle thousands of cases every year, which is why, as a rule, we do not accept documents before the client relationship has begun. You can find more detailed instructions on how to submit documents from the legal aid secretary or your attorney.

Oikeusapupäätökseen on kirjattu, että oikeusapua myönnetään enintään 80 tuntia. Tämä ei kuitenkaan tarkoita, että asiasi käsittelyyn kuluisi niin paljon aikaa.

Kuhunkin asiaan käytetty aika riippuu monista eri tekijöistä. Esimerkiksi kaikki puhelimessa ja kasvokkain avustajan kanssa käytävät neuvottelut sekä julkisen oikeusavustajan ja sinun välisesi sähköpostikirjeenvaihto ovat laskutettavaa julkisen oikeusavustajan asiaasi käyttämää aikaa. Samoin kaikki julkisen oikeusavustajan asiassasi vastapuoleen tai tämän avustajaan, käräjäoikeuteen tai muihin asiasi käsittelyn vaatimiin tahoihin tapahtuvat yhteydenotot ovat aikaa, joka laskutetaan asiakkaalta.

Tarkkaa asiaan käytettävää aikaa on usein mahdotonta arvioida heti käsittelyn alussa. Julkinen oikeusavustaja voi yrittää antaa jonkinlaisen arvion asiaan kuluvasta tuntimäärästä, mutta se voi olla vain suuntaa antava, eikä sido oikeusaputoimistoa.It has been recorded in the legal aid decision that a maximum of 80 hours of legal aid will be granted. However, this does not mean that the processing of your case will take that much time.

The time spent on each case depends on many different factors. For instance, all telephone and face-to-face meetings with the attorney and e-mail correspondence between you and the public legal aid attorney are billable hours spent by the public legal aid attorney on your case. Likewise, all contacts concerning your case made by the public legal aid attorney with the opposing party or said party’s attorney, the District Court, or other parties required by the processing of your case, constitute time that will be billed from the client.

It is often impossible to estimate exactly how much time will be spent on the case immediately when the processing starts. The public legal aid attorney can try to give an estimate on the number of hours that will be spent on the case, but this is only a guideline, and it is not binding on the legal aid office.

Clients of the legal aid office are always natural persons. This means that a decedent’s estate cannot be a client of the legal aid office.

In principle, the client in estate inventory matters is the party reporting for a decedent’s estate. The decision on legal aid is made based on information on the income, expenditure and assets of the party reporting for the estate, meaning that depending on the situation of the party reporting for the estate, the deductible percentage can range from 0 to 75%.

The party reporting for the estate must have real knowledge of the status of the estate or an opportunity to find out about it. For example, a minor child cannot act as a party reporting for an estate.

In addition to the information on the income and expenditure of the party reporting for the estate, a supplementary deductible may also be taken into account in the legal aid decision. This supplementary deductible consists of the assets of the decedent before the liabilities have been covered.

Example 1

• The fee of the attorney is EUR 570 (fee of EUR 500 + legal aid charge of EUR 70)
• The basic deductible of the party reporting for the estate is 0% (i.e. the legal aid is free) 
• The gross assets of the decedent’s estate amount to EUR 200 (no monetary assets, a boat with a value of EUR 200, and EUR 10,000 of liabilities).

= The recipient of legal aid pays EUR 270 for drawing up an estate inventory deed (gross assets of the decedent’s estate of EUR 200 + legal aid charge of EUR 70)

Example 2

• The fee of the attorney is EUR 570 (fee of EUR 500 + legal aid charge of EUR 70).
• The basic deductible of the party reporting for the estate is 20%
• The gross assets of the decedents estate are EUR 90 (EUR 90 of assets, and EUR 10,000 of liabilities).

= The recipient of legal aid pays EUR 270 for drawing up an estate inventory deed (deductible of the recipient of legal aid of EUR 100 (20% x EUR 500) + gross assets of the decedent’s estate of EUR 90 + legal aid charge of EUR 70).

The estate inventory deed is drawn up with information according to the date of death of the decedent. As an example, the amount of euros in the decedent’s bank account on the date of death is recorded as the balance of the decedent’s account. Even if there was less money in the account later, for instance because it was used to pay bills, this will not reduce the amount of supplementary deductible.

The fact that the decedent’s estate has more liabilities than assets will not remove the supplementary deductible. The supplementary deductible consists of the assets of the decedent before the liabilities have been taken into account.