Waterloo Region Community Legal Services
Automatically compiled listing. Details may contain errors.Established 1980 · Waterloo Region
One of 102 law firms listed in Kitchener, and one of 6 handling Landlord & Tenant.
Accepts Legal Aid
Accepts Legal AidAbout Waterloo Region Community Legal Services
Waterloo Region Community Legal Services, usually called WRCLS, is a non-profit legal clinic that gives free legal help to residents of Waterloo Region who have low incomes. It's been at this since 1980, and its reach takes in the whole region: Kitchener, Waterloo and Cambridge as well as the townships of Wilmot, Wellesley, Woolwich and North Dumfries. It's also one of the 76 community legal clinics in Ontario that Legal Aid Ontario funds.
The team isn't only lawyers. Paralegals, a social worker, a community development worker, an Indigenous Justice Coordinator and legal support staff work alongside them, so clients can get non-legal help as well as legal services. Help can mean a referral, summary advice or full representation, plus public legal education. Summary advice is a chance to explain your problem and hear what staff think your next step should be. A board of community members governs the clinic.
It can help with tenancy, employment and Employment Insurance, workplace sexual harassment, Ontario Works, ODSP appeals and CPP disability. Immigration and consumer protection matters are on it too, along with Indigenous justice work (Gladue included), changing a name or gender marker, and having documents notarized or commissioned.
Casework is only one part of what it does. WRCLS takes part in law reform and community development, and its outreach has gone to rural communities, migrant workers and unhoused people. It's also been part of causes such as Stop the Cuts to Uninsured Healthcare and Basic Income Waterloo Region. Questions can go to the clinic at 519-743-0254 or through its web contact form.
History
The clinic grew out of an older service. In 1972, the Social Planning Council of Kitchener-Waterloo and the Ontario Legal Aid Plan, as it was then known, were running free duty counsel sessions. These were held on Tuesday evenings, and as more people came to them, gaps in the help available became clear.
WRCLS opened in January 1980 once its funding was approved, with a staff of three: one lawyer, a community legal worker and a secretary. In April 1982 an independent board of directors took the clinic's administration over from the Social Planning Council, and in July 1983 it was incorporated as a non-profit charitable corporation.
Practice areas
Tenant housing problems
If a landlord sends you any paperwork, WRCLS asks you to call right away for information and advice. After the 250 Frederick St. building in Kitchener was sold in November 2023, the landlord went to the Landlord and Tenant Board for approval to evict tenants. The clinic's senior paralegal worked with community advocates and represented the residents of 30 units against that bad faith eviction, and after an October 14, 2025 hearing, the Board dismissed the landlord's eviction applications.
Commissioning and notary work
The clinic commissions documents, acts as a notary witnessing signatures and makes certified true copies, and it can help draft declarations on a range of subjects. It's only available to people who meet the clinic's financial eligibility test.
Workers' rights and Employment Insurance
Non-unionized workers can get summary advice about workplace rights. Clients who qualify financially can get more: an assessment of their case, negotiation with the employer and litigation, with representation in Small Claims Court, at the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario and the Ontario Labour Relations Board, and on claims filed with the Ministry of Labour, Training and Skills Development. The clinic also offers employers training and resources on preventing and dealing with workplace sexual harassment.
Ontario Works, ODSP and CPP disability
For Ontario Works, WRCLS helps with internal review requests and appeals to the Social Benefits Tribunal. It also helps people dispute a refused special ODSP benefit, such as Mandatory Special Necessities, and appeal it to that tribunal if needed. On CPP disability, it supports people whose applications were turned down and may represent them before the Social Security Tribunal.
Sponsorship, citizenship and status
The clinic's immigration help covers Family Class sponsorship of a spouse, partner, child, parent or grandparent, citizenship applications and refusals, and problems with a person's immigration status.
Consumer protection
Consumer problems in Ontario fall mainly under the Consumer Protection Act, and separate laws deal with matters such as collection agencies and electricity contracts. Bankruptcy is outside the clinic's consumer protection help.
Name and gender marker changes
For many Non-binary, Two Spirit and Trans people, what's on their legal documents doesn't match their lived identities. WRCLS helps with applications to change a name and gender marker on those documents.
Encampment and Charter litigation
After the City of Cambridge served eviction notices on the Branchton Road encampment on March 18, 2024, the clinic filed for an injunction for two of its residents, and the city rescinded the notices on May 8, 2024. WRCLS also joined other community agencies in filing a Charter challenge to an Ontario government decision on consumption and treatment sites (CTS), under which 10 CTS sites were to close as of March 31, 2025, the one at 150 Duke St. W. in Kitchener among them.
Fees & payment
Legal aidHow Waterloo Region Community Legal Services works
WRCLS's vision is a Waterloo Region in which justice is open to everyone on equal terms, along with the supports people need for a better quality of life. Its aim is to make life better for people living in poverty and to remove the barriers that keep community members from getting justice.
The clinic regularly offers legal education sessions, tailored to what your group needs. And if it can't help you itself, it commits to doing its best to refer you to another service that can.
Reported cases
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The Regional Municipality of Waterloo v. Persons Unknown and to be Ascertained, 2023 ONSC 670
Justice Michael Valente declared that the Region's by-law breached section 7 of the Charter and was inoperative to the extent it stopped encampment residents at 100 Victoria St. N. in Kitchener from living there and putting up temporary shelters without a permit while homeless people outnumbered available accessible shelter beds in the Region. WRCLS represented encampment residents in the case.
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The Regional Municipality of Waterloo v. Named Respondents and Persons Unknown, 2026 ONSC 2971
WRCLS acted as legal representative for encampment residents, who had earlier obtained an interlocutory injunction stopping the Region from enforcing its site-specific by-law until their Charter claims were decided. The court declared the site-specific and amended by-laws contrary to sections 7 and 15(1) of the Charter and not justified under section 1, finding the amended by-law drew a distinction based on homeless status as an analogous ground; Waterloo Regional Council later voted, on June 16, to appeal the ruling.
Decisions where the firm's lawyers appeared as counsel, from public court records. Past cases don't predict future results.
In the community
- Ahwenehaode, an Indigenous justice program founded in December 2016, serves Waterloo Region through WRCLS, and Guelph and Wellington County and the City of Mississauga through the community legal clinics there. Its Cayuga name means "Using kind supportive words."
- The Exposure Project uses storytelling photography with the aim of breaking down the stigma around poverty and homelessness.
- WRCLS takes free legal clinics out to partner sites: a monthly session on the third Thursday at the Multi-Agency Community Space (MACS) on Main St. in Cambridge, monthly drop-in clinics in Kitchener with the African Family Revival Organization (AFRO), and bi-monthly clinics at House of Friendship's ShelterCare through 2026.
- In 2025 it teamed up with the Waterloo Undergraduate Student Association (WUSA) to offer free legal support sessions.
- On October 17, 2023, the clinic hosted a forum at Kitchener Public Library on the systemic forces that keep the cycle of poverty going and that criminalize people living in poverty.
- The clinic's employment lawyer made submissions on a proposed law at Queen's Park on October 8, 2024.
- As part of its law reform work, the clinic gathers survey data on renovictions, meaning evictions for renovations or a landlord's personal use, across the Region of Waterloo.
Affiliations & connections
- Legal Aid Ontario: WRCLS is a community legal clinic funded by Legal Aid Ontario, though it isn't the LAO office itself. Anyone needing a certificate for a criminal, family or immigration matter can reach LAO toll-free at 1-800-668-8258.
- Social Development Centre Waterloo Region: The Social Development Centre's Eviction Prevention KWC program is one of the partners on WRCLS's eviction prevention toolkit for housing providers.
- Basic Income Waterloo Region: WRCLS and Basic Income Waterloo Region co-presented a lunch and learn on basic income ahead of the 2021 federal election.
Lawyers
No individual lawyers listed on the firm site.
Offices 2
Langs Community Health Centre, Room N206, 1145 Concession Road, Cambridge, Ontario N3H 4L5
The neighbourhood
The main office is in Unit 101 at 450 Frederick Street in Kitchener, on the same street as the Waterloo Region Courthouse at 85 Frederick St. The clinic sits on the Haldimand Tract, land promised to the Six Nations that stretches six miles out from either bank of the Grand River.
In Cambridge, WRCLS works from Room N206 at Langs Community Health Centre on Concession Road. Langs started in 1978 as the Langs Farm Village Association, set up by local residents and service providers, and in 2011 it moved into the HUB@1145, a community hub where more than 25 partner organizations share space and deliver health and social programs.
Frequently asked questions
- Will Waterloo Region Community Legal Services ask about my income before giving me summary advice?
- Waterloo Region Community Legal Services generally won't ask about your income before giving summary advice by phone or at its office. Its services are free for eligible individuals and families, and it can ask for your most recent Notice of Assessment at any point to check that you qualify.
- I'm a landlord with a problem tenant. Can WRCLS help me?
- Waterloo Region Community Legal Services doesn't provide services to landlords and points them to landlordselfhelp.com instead. It does publish a best practices toolkit on eviction prevention for housing providers in Waterloo Region.
- Can I walk in at the Frederick Street office or the Langs office in Cambridge without an appointment?
- Waterloo Region Community Legal Services takes walk-ins Tuesday to Thursday at both offices, from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. in Kitchener and 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. in Cambridge. Mondays and Fridays are by appointment only, and the offices close from noon to 1 p.m. each day.
- Will WRCLS commission a declaration in place of a passport guarantor or a land transfer tax affidavit?
- Waterloo Region Community Legal Services won't do declarations in lieu of a passport guarantor, and it doesn't handle land transfer tax affidavits or any other real estate documents. For the commissioning and notary work it does take on, you'll need to book an appointment.
- Does WRCLS help with refugee claims as part of its immigration work?
- Waterloo Region Community Legal Services doesn't assist with the refugee claim process at this time.
- Can I get WRCLS tenant tip sheets in Arabic, Ukrainian or Tigrinya?
- Waterloo Region Community Legal Services offers tenant tip sheets in a range of languages, among them Arabic, Ukrainian and Tigrinya. Its housing toolkit also includes a short note for tenants, in 42 languages, saying a document is an important legal one about their housing and that, if needed, they should get someone to help them understand it right away.
- Who at WRCLS helps Indigenous clients with Gladue services and referrals?
- Waterloo Region Community Legal Services has an Indigenous Justice Coordinator who can offer extra supports and warm referrals to community organizations for clients who self-identify as Indigenous. Gladue services are offered through Ahwenehaode, the clinic's Indigenous justice program.
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