VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – A campaign to pressure the province into boosting legal aid funding is escalating.

Hundreds of lawyers will be refusing to take on criminal harassment cases for those who are out-of-custody beginning Thursday. And come January, they’ll say no to legal aid cases involving out-of-custody sex assault charges.

Bentley Doyle of the Trial Lawyers Association of BC says desperate times call for desperate measures.

“The lawyers know that they are running this campaign, if you will, for the citizens that aren’t qualifying. And then, yeah, they are refusing the services to draw attention to this because it’s that dire of a situation,” Doyle believes.

He says there are too many people representing themselves in court. “And most of them in that spot don’t have a lawyer because they can’t afford one and they can’t qualify for legal aid because it was made more difficult to qualify.”

Doyle says a further $40-million could immediately go into legal aid.