Parkdale Community Legal Services is a community legal clinic located on Queen Street in the west end of Toronto, Canada. We provide free legal advice, assistance and representation to low income residents living in the Parkdale and Swansea area. We are funded by Legal Aid Ontario and Osgoode Hall Law School of York University.

Serving our Community...

Since 1971, Parkdale Community Legal Services has delivered poverty law services to low-income residents of Parkdale.  Recently, we have expanded our catchment area to include the west end neighbourhood of Swansea. We cover a wide variety of subject areas, including social assistance, workers' rights, tenants' rights, immigration and refugee claims, mental health law, and domestic violence issues.

In addition to casework and summary advice, PCLS provides public legal education to Parkdale and Swansea residents and the broader community. We are actively engaged in grassroots organizing, lobbying and other law reform activities, frequently in cooperation with other Parkdale agencies and community organizations as well as social justice groups beyond our catchment area.

Parkdale is both a teaching clinic and a community clinic. We provide legal services and at the same time deliver Osgoode Hall Law School's Intensive Programme in Poverty Law. Our law students are the primary caseworkers, conducting client interviews, negotiating, and preparing and arguing before courts and tribunals. They also take part in public legal education, law reform and community development projects.

Helping people outside Parkdale

One sign of our success at public outreach is a growing number of requests for legal advice from people visiting this web site. Unfortunately, we cannot give legal advice either on the internet or by telephone. We can give legal advice in person only and are restricted to helping low-income residents of the Parkdale and Swansea areas, in Toronto. To find the clinic nearest you, visit Legal Aid Ontario's web site.

We still want to hear from you though. Did you hear about our web site from a public meeting or media appearance? Email our This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it and let us know how we did. We promise a response! And while you are here, check us out.

Our web site highlights some of the many activities with which the clinic is involved and provides links to other community, legal and social justice organizations. We update our site frequently, so come back often. In the near future, we plan to expand our site to include legal information and interactive quizzes, as well as a quarterly newsletter.

Please take a minute to explore, and learn a little about who we are and what we do.