Criminal Lawyers in St. Catharines, ON

Criminal lawyers in St. Catharines serve the Niagara region, and unlike many towns this one has a courthouse in the city itself. St. Catharines Courthouse, 59 Church Street, is on the Province's register for civil, criminal, criminal youth, family and small claims matters. The practices here range from firms that take only criminal matters to full-service regional firms with criminal law as one department.

Two more Niagara courthouses that hear criminal matters sit within reach. Welland Courthouse, 102 East Main Street, Welland, is 19 km from St. Catharines and offers French-language services. Fort Erie Courthouse, 200 Jarvis St., Fort Erie, is 37 km away and is listed for criminal matters. The distances say nothing about where any one charge will be heard. Ridgeville, where J Leigh Daboll is based, is a smaller town whose lawyer sits on this page with the St. Catharines practices.

For a person who has no lawyer on the day, duty counsel is a lawyer at the courthouse who can advise on rights, ask to delay a court date, act at a bail hearing and help with a guilty plea, for people who qualify. Several St. Catharines practices also accept legal aid directly: Protomanni & Associates, 10(B) Criminal Law Center and V. Singh Professional Corporation.

Impaired driving is the work that most firms here take on. AveryLaw is built around it and concentrates on impaired driving, refusal and over 80 charges, including cases involving cars, boats and snowmobiles. Jolanta Bula & Associates advises on criminal charges, motor vehicle offences and Highway Traffic Act matters and is the one practice here that offers service in French. The paralegal practice JUSTICEJOLT helps drivers fight traffic tickets and provincial offences. Traffic and provincial offence work is a separate line from criminal defence, and both are covered by practices in town.