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On a yellow slip of paper taped in the back of defence lawyer Karen Ann Reid’s day planner is a list.

One side has the initials of Ottawa judges who don’t impose what’s known as the victim surcharge; on the other side, the ones who do.

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It’s Reid’s handy guide for submitting pleas for her poorest clients, ensuring she doesn’t inadvertently put them in front of a judge who imposes the controversial fee which was made mandatory by the Conservative government but swiftly rejected by some judges as unconstitutional.

“There are some clients of ours who can afford to pay victim fine surcharges and others who can’t,” says Reid, who isn’t alone in using the practice colloquially known in the corridors of the courthouse as “judge shopping.”

“Where you have a client who is poor, who is marginalized, who is living an existence on the streets, who is addicted, who perhaps is already wavering under a series of previously imposed victim fine surcharges and can’t possibly climb out from under that obligation through any legal means, are you going to then expose your client to even more of a burden?” asks Reid. “Or are you going to strategize the plea so your client isn’t under a legal obligation to have to come up with funds that the client will never be able to amass?”