The head of the Lakehead University Faculty of Law's legal clinic says cuts to legal aid in the province means it will no longer take new criminal or provincial offences cases from people outside Thunder Bay.

Provincial cuts to legal aid ultimately resulted in Lakehead University Community Legal Services losing about 10 per cent of its annual budget, or about $70,000, director Kimberley Gagan told CBC News. That means the organization has to scale back how often it sends counsel on the road to courtrooms in smaller communities hundreds of kilometres outside of Thunder Bay to represent clients.

Existing clients outside the Thunder Bay area with criminal or provincial offences matters will still be represented, she said, but the clinic won't take on new cases in those areas of law outside the city.

"The travel cost is primarily the thing that is going to prevent us from providing those services at least for the foreseeable future, or until such time as we are able to determine how we're going to deal with this funding cut," Gagan said, adding that the frequency with which criminal and provincial offences matters — things like most traffic charges and hunting and fishing violations — return to court is the main issue.

She added that regional service for other areas of law in which the clinic practices, like landlord-tenant matters and small claims, will continue unaffected.

She said the clinic works "dozens" of criminal and provincial offence cases per year outside Thunder Bay.

The legal clinic offers free service to people on low incomes who normally are eligible for legal aid. According to its website, the clinic takes clients in Thunder Bay, Fort William First Nation, the Municipality of Greenstone, Nipigon, Marathon and Schreiber, while also considering offering services in other parts of the northwest on a case-by-case basis.

A spokesperson for now-former Ontario Attorney General Caroline Mulroney has said that the changes to legal aid funding are to ensure resources are "targeted to direct, front-line services for real people," and that a review of legal aid by the province's auditor general found room for improvement at the agency that the government said, if followed up on, would allow more clients to be served even with reduced funding.

CBC News has requested comment from the ministry about the situation with the Lakehead legal clinic, which receives the bulk of its funding from Legal Aid Ontario.

"The criminal and provincial offences [cases], we just can't afford to do it right now," Gagan said.

She said the clinic is still reviewing services it offers in Thunder Bay but "what I'm anticipating right now is that we will continue to offer the same types of services but we will probably have to take a smaller load."

Gagan said that could mean reducing some full time positions to part time; she added that she will also be working to source funding from other places.

"It will definitely have an impact on the front line services that we can offer as far as number of files and the quantity of the cases we can take on," Gagan said about the new funding reality. "If we have to reduce staffing by a certain percentage, then those people will only be able to take on as much as they can take on with the time that they're available to come to work."

"We're going to do the best we can with what we have ... but it's certainly a big blow."