services in Ontario, legal services are subject to the provisions of the Human Rights
Code. Lawyers and law firms have a legal obligation to ensure that services are offered
that are accessible to people with disabilities and do not discriminate. The obligation to
not discriminate includes an obligation to accommodate people with disabilities, up to the
point of undue hardship.
The Ontario Human Rights Commission’s Policy and Guidelines on Disability and the
Duty to Accommodate^88 sets out in detail the views of the Commission regarding
accommodation for people with disabilities. While not legislation, the Guidelines are an
essential starting point for understanding the duty to make appropriate accommodations,
short of undue hardship, for people with disabilities. The Guidelines do not contain a
formula for determining which accommodations must be provided. Accommodation is an
individualized process, and will require different solutions in different cases depending
upon the specific client and his/her disability-related needs.
It is important to emphasize that since lawyers are obligated to provide accommodations,
the costs of accommodations must be borne by lawyers. Expenditures on
accommodations (e.g. sign language interpreters) are not disbursements that may be
charged back to clients.
Some accommodation measures entail no costs and are accomplished by changes to
law firm policies. For instance, broad policies prohibiting all animals from offices have the
effect of preventing access to people with guide dogs or other service animals. An
amendment to such a policy to exempt disability-related service animals would cost
nothing at all.
87 Code, supra note 30 at s. 1.
88 Guidelines on Disability, supra note 5.