'Legal Aid'

last updated 14.5.13
-- for the latest updates see the national Law Society's 'What Price Justice' campaign webpage at www.lawsociety.org.uk/defendinglegalaid

To find your local Legal Services Commission office visit the page listing them on www.legalservices.gov.uk/aboutus/contactus/our_local_offices.asp

Law professionals seeking or offering Legal Aid advice or wishing to join discussions about it could visit iLegal at www.legalaidandme.proboards.com.

Most recent item: 14.5.13 from a Law Gazette e-digest item by Catherine Baksi

The legal profession has united in its opposition to the government’s proposals for fee cuts and reforms which lawyers say will ‘sabotage’ the criminal justice system. The Law Society and Bar Council today issued a statement on the four key planks of changes set out in a consultation paper which they jointly oppose: - The proposal to abolish freedom of choice of representation is an unacceptable inroad into the basic rights of those facing criminal charges; - The imposition of price-competitive tendering with the price cap will make it uneconomic for firms to provide quality services, leading to a wholesale exodus from the market; - Fixed contract sizes will make it impossible for smaller firms to remain in the market and provide no incentive for firms to compete on quality; and - The flattening of fee rates so that a solicitor is paid as much for a guilty plea as for a potentially complex case where a client is not guilty will introduce perverse incentives and a danger of miscarriages of justice. The declaration follows a meeting last month of representatives from the Legal Aid Practitioners Group, Criminal Law Solicitors' Association, Criminal Bar Association, Solicitors Association of Higher Court Advocates, the Big Firms Group, London Criminal Courts Solicitors Association and the Society of Asian Lawyers, as well as the Bar Council and Law Society. Law Society chief executive Desmond Hudson said: ‘There was an unprecedented level of agreement between all who attended on our opposition to these four key aspects of the government proposals and our concern that they will sabotage the criminal justice system of which this country is rightly proud.’ He said the groups will be working together over the coming weeks and months to co-ordinate campaigning work to protect the ‘already hard-pressed’ system. Bar chairman Maura McGowan QC said: ‘The Bar fears that these proposals, if implemented, will reduce even further the right of the less well-off to quality legal representation, whether in civil or criminal matters. That right is a basic tenet of a democratic society and should not be further eroded.’ The Law Society has commissioned research on the financial state of criminal firms and the likely impact of the proposed fee cuts. The survey ends on 17 May.

8.5.13 The Bar Council has called on the Ministry of Justice to reconsider its ‘discriminatory’ legal aid cuts that it warns will ‘irreversibly undermine access to justice’, create a two-tier service, and ‘damage the reputation of the justice system worldwide’. The paper warns that: Removing a suspect’s ability to choose their lawyer will mean that quality disappears. ‘Instead of having equal access to justice regardless of means, we will have a two-tier system: one for those who can afford high-quality representation and one for those who can’t.’ Price Competitive Tendering will inhibit competition and make suppliers into ‘processors’ of justice and incentivise them to do the ‘minimum work at the lowest acceptable standard’. Reducing the number of suppliers from 1,600 to a maximum of 400 will create advice deserts, making it harder for millions to get appropriate advice, especially in rural areas. Meanwhile, any savings will be outweighed by the costs of having inexperienced providers offering legal services at the lowest price, with a consequent increase in appeals and miscarriages of justice. The paper says the cuts faced by legal aid lawyers have been the ‘harshest’ anywhere in public services, driving the best lawyers away from public service law, with the greatest impact on female and black and minority lawyers. Further cuts to civil legal aid, the introduction of a residence test and limiting judicial review will ‘severely weaken the fundamental principle of equality before the law’, hitting the most vulnerable, particularly in housing and immigration cases, the Bar Council says. The Bar Council has also started a petition against the changes with campaigning group 38 Degrees. Another petition, started by Exeter solicitor Rachel Bentley, is on the Number 10 website. If it receives 100,000 signatures, it may lead to a debate in House of Commons. 6.5.13
from a Law Society email item

Government legal aid proposals: economically unworkable, possibly unlawful 2 May 2013 Criminal lawyers who read 'Transforming Legal Aid' will be forgiven for feeling they’ve nothing left to lose. While the Law Society certainly has no illusions about the pressures on the Ministry of Justice to save money, the criminal legal aid proposals still came as a shock. The biggest shock was the scale of the cuts the ministry intends to extract, while expecting the lawyers to do even more work than at present. It is hard to reconcile this pro-business government making a proposal so at variance with what businesses realistically need to operate. With changes like this, the first reaction is often to say that it cannot be done. Then, as the shock wears off, practitioners start to think about how it might in fact be feasible. However, in this case the reverse applies. As the shock of the 17.5 per cent cut wears off, practitioners realise that they are also expected to provide magistrates' court duty solicitor services for free, and travel and subsistence costs will no longer be paid separately. They will have to provide a member of staff to sit behind counsel again. They will have to commit to investing in the IT necessary to engage with the government’s digital strategy. They will have to pay for peer review. The plan is that practitioners should be able to spread costs over a larger volume of work, and thereby generate economies of scale. But instead of serving their local town, small firms will have to provide services across an entire county. Capital investment will be essential, along with ongoing costs to manage it. Firms will also have to fund the significant increase in the amount of work in progress that will result. These extra costs mean that this looks like a non-starter for smaller firms. Larger firms will fare little better. In each criminal justice area, the ministry proposes to award a fixed number of precisely equal contracts. Firms will not be able to grow through running a successful business, as in a proper market. Instead, they will be constrained by the allocation they get from government, and can do no more business and no less. The number and size of contracts in each area varies, and it is not easy to discern the basis on which these figures have been set. Contracts are likely to vary from around £7-800,000 in some areas to around £2m in others. Many larger firms are already reaching or exceeding the limits set for their area, and would therefore be required to absorb the 17.5 per cent cut without getting the benefit of any increase in volume which is supposed to enable them to survive. In some cases they would have to downsize. Consequently, the inability to expand and increase volumes means this looks like a non-starter for larger firms. The Ministry of Justice envisages giving firms just three months from being notified that their bid was successful to the date of commencement of the new service. This is patently unrealistic from a business perspective: restructuring of the market will take far longer to achieve, with firms having to deal with financing, mergers and redundancies. The government's proposal to remove a client’s choice of solicitor is central to its ability to deliver its fixed number of exactly equal contracts. Throughout the last eight years of discussions about proposals for price competitive tendering, the ministry has always accepted that client choice is one of the few effective mechanisms the government has to drive quality of service. Almost as disturbing is the fact that firms that seek to provide anything above a minimum threshold of quality will be at a financial disadvantage in any tender round compared with those offering only the bare minimum. Firms won’t just be encouraged to offer threshold quality only, they will be economically unable to do anything else. There is, however, a bigger problem with the proposal to remove client choice. Clause 27(4) of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 says, “An individual who qualifies under this Part for representation for the purposes of criminal proceedings by virtue of a determination under section 16 may select any representative or representatives willing to act for the individual, subject to regulations under subsection (6).” The explanatory note to the bill explains what such regulations may do: “the regulations may limit the choice to a specified group of providers or may limit the number of legal representatives who can act for any individual at any one time. They may also restrict the right of the individual to appoint a new legal representative in place of one previously chosen.” Jonathan Djanogly, while under-secretary of state for justice, also gave an unequivocal assurance when questioned about possible restrictions on client choice. During the committee stage of the bill, he said, “In criminal cases, people will be able to select their own representative, subject to regulations in clause 26, which may limit choice in the ways referred to in subsection (6)… Our intention is that in criminal cases, as at the moment, an individual must select a provider with whom the Lord Chancellor has entered into a contract or other arrangements.” It may well be that the primary statute does not permit the government to remove the client’s right of choice without exception. This is backed up by the explanatory note and the express words of the then minister. Yet that is what will happen under the government’s proposed scheme. The proposal is economically unworkable and possibly unlawful, and it is difficult to see any straightforward changes the government could make to overcome the difficulties. The whole model needs to be completely rethought. But the government has no time to rethink it. Notwithstanding all the issues set out above, the Treasury is demanding that the Ministry of Justice makes massive cuts within a very short period of time. Even if the ministry scrapped competitive tendering, we still face the prospect, as an alternative, of an unprecedented administrative cut in the rates. The Law Society issued its own consultation paper on 5 April to get practitioners’ views on what could realistically be done to give them the best chance of surviving such cuts. It is debatable whether enough firms will remain viable for the government to continue to deliver the service it is obliged to provide. We hope to secure an outcome that will enable practitioners who wish to continue providing criminal defence services to do so, even if not in the same sort of business model they are currently in. Do make sure you respond to the consultation. On the information currently available to us, we believe that this proposal takes the government past the point of no return. No amount of tinkering with the system of procurement will solve that fundamental difficulty. 15.4.13
from a Law Society Gazette email digest item by John Hyde

Tendering plans for criminal legal aid: Law Society statement We have now had a chance to consider in-depth the competitive tendering proposals the government published last Tuesday. The scale of the cuts proposed is shocking, and in our view the proposal wholly fails to achieve the government's stated aim of a restructuring of the market so that the winning bidders would be able to absorb cuts of the magnitude proposed in the timescale provided. Our key concerns are: For smaller firms: the requirement to cover a whole criminal justice area means an increase in infrastructure and management costs. On top of a 17.5 per cent cut this would almost guarantee bankruptcy. For larger firms: the artificial cap on the share of the market that they can be awarded means there is unlikely to be sufficient volume to enable them to absorb the cuts. Timeframe: Firms would only be given three months from notification that they have a contract to undertake the restructuring and expansion required. Given that the successful firms will have to implement significant IT and infrastructure changes and, very likely, seek regulatory approval for changes to their structure, this is clearly not remotely achievable. Firms will be unlikely to be willing to make significant investment before the contract has been awarded. Client choice: The scheme proposes abolition of a client's freedom of choice of solicitor, which we understood to be guaranteed by LASPO. Client choice does not just benefit the client, it provides competition and an incentive to keep standards high. Simply on the timeframe, these proposals are unworkable, and the clear reaction of the firms that we have spoken to is that the proposals will lead not to a restructuring, but to a collapse of the criminal defence system. The Law Society's action It is essential to remember that: The Treasury is requiring the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) to make significant savings. We should be in no doubt of the reality of this and the question is not whether, but how those savings will be made. There is major political will at the highest level to achieve the savings and to implement some form of tendering. This is of a different to order to that which we have seen on earlier occasions where this has been proposed. We have seen with LASPO that the MoJ is willing to push through cuts in both fees and scope that the profession considered untenable. The MoJ has said it will listen to proposals which will achieve the savings in a different way. The Society agrees that, as these proposals stand, they will not work for the profession. We believe that our stance must be to: - provide evidence to government which shows that they will not work - establish whether there are any changes to the proposals which would make them workable for the profession or whether there are alternatives – for example, would a simple across-the-board cut in fees enable the profession to restructure itself, and would it be less unpalatable than what is currently proposed?, and - look at ways in which we can support those members of the profession who wish to continue to undertake criminal work, should we be unsuccessful in moving the government. To this end, the Law Society: - has issued a consultation paper to the profession seeking views on the issues set out here - will be setting up a series of roadshows to inform the profession and hear its views in the course of late April and May - will be providing advice to the profession on responding to the consultation and lobbying MPs, and - is instructing experts to look at the proposals and provide the best evidence that we can to show government that its proposals are unworkable and, where possible, to identify how they must be changed. The Society does not rule out more serious action later on but, at this stage, we believe that it is in the interests of our members and of the criminal justice system to engage with the proposals and provide evidence and reasoned alternatives to government. The Society needs the following from the profession: - responses to our consultation - engagement with the proposals - evidence to help us show the government its errors: please send to crimetendering@lawsociety.org.uk I hope that you will help us with this. We will keep you informed regularly through our e-newsletters and our website as to progress. Law Society president Lucy Scott-Moncrieff

4.1.13: The government must postpone all further civil justice reforms until lawyers have had sufficient time to prepare for change, the Law Society said today. Society president Lucy Scott-Moncrieff welcomed justice secretary Chris Grayling’s decision to halt April’s expansion of the RTA Portal – confirmed over the Christmas break – as the ‘only sensible option’.
This followed lobbying by the Society and various claimant groups who argued that the electronic portal system would not be ready to cope with the expected increase in cases.
Scott-Moncrieff said, following the climbdown over the portal, it was now time to consider delaying the implementation of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act, also due for the start of April.
‘However much the Law Society and its members may dislike some of the changes being introduced by the LASPO Act, we recognise that parliament has spoken,’ she said. ‘Our concern now is that rushed and ill-judged implementation will damage public confidence in the justice system, which is in nobody’s interests.
‘It is a sign of good government to spend more time ensuring that changes are properly thought through so that everybody, including practitioners, has time to prepare properly.’
In a letter to the justice secretary in November, Scott-Moncrieff had advised that the profession and legal system needed time to assimilate changes if they are to be implemented smoothly. She pointed to the Woolf reforms in 1999 which were ready more than a year before they were implemented. In contrast, a consultation on fixed costs for personal injury work finished only today - and rules governing one-way cost-shifting have yet to be approved.
The government issued a statement in December saying that a new protocol for the RTA Portal was to be announced ‘in the new year’, but that has yet to materialise.

1.8.11 from Law Society Gazette online news The UK’s largest not-for-profit social welfare law firm has blamed legal aid cuts and the 'burden' of the Legal Services Commission’s bureaucracy for its demise. Law For All, which advised 15,000 clients a year in three London boroughs, East Anglia and the Midlands, went into administration last week.

Previous Items

14.07.11 Extract from New Statesman online article by Linda Lee, President of The Law Society Ken Clarke's Sentencing and Legal Aid Bill [...] is a devastating blow and has manifold implications for all parts of society. Among its victims are women suffering at the hands of abusive partners and numbers* of patients who each year undergo a bungled operation... The Law Society has itself proposed alternative savings of £384m, 10 per cent more than the government. But our proposals would still guarantee access to justice for society's vulnerable... *altered from 'millions' due to lack of corroborating statistics 22.06.11 Extract from article 'Justice Bill - Clause 12 is the one to watch' on Sound Off For Justice website' A new clause (12) of the Justice Bill appears to introduce a merits test for advice for individuals in the police station. This puts access to justice into the hands of the police and the government. Today if you are arrested you are automatically entitled to free advice from a solicitor which is paid for via the legal aid budget. Under these proposals, the Director of Legal Aid Case Work, who is a civil servant designated by the Lord Chancellor, must determine "that the individual qualifies for such advice or assistance" in accordance with a new test set out in the act. This will be 'means' and 'merits' tested. So in each individual case a determination will have to be made of the person's financial position and whether their case has sufficient advice. How do you have time to do these tests within the timescales that the police operate? How will someone arrested prove their means to pay for their case when they don't know what it will entail? The determination under this section indicates that the individual may only be afforded 'telephone' advice. Even in serious cases. It is incredible that given all of the recent cases of police miscarriages of justice, including the Ian Tomlinson case [and more recently revealed misconducts] that the government is happy to push ahead with this proposal.

21.06.11 Extract from email received from The Law Society According to parliament's* Justice Select Committee report, these cuts will increase crime, weaken social cohesion and access to civil rights, and cost tax payers even more...The government has failed to consider our alternative savings of £384m, which would make a bigger contribution to cutting the deficit than Kenneth Clarke's proposals, without the need to remove legal aid from some of the most vulnerable people in society.
*Altered from 'the government's own' as this is incorrect; it is the Impact Assesment that is the government's not the Select Committee

21.06.11 Extract from article on Sound Off For Justice website Today, the Prime Minister David Cameron said this about the government's green paper and proposals to cut legal aid support...: 'What's the point of publishing a green paper or white paper if you don't listen to what people say?'... If only the Prime Minister, Ken Clarke, and the government would listen to groups such as Shelter, Netmums and the Women's Institute and all the people who want to save civil legal aid. Sound Off For Justice has offered a way to make his poplicy much better, by protecting civil legal aid at the same time as saving more money than the proposed custs, but the PM has not listened...

17.01.11 Extract from article in Law Society Gazette 09.12.10 p.3 by Catherine Baksi
The Legal Services Commision came under fire from MPs over senior executives' pay, after its recently published accounts showed that former chief executive Carolyn Regan was paid more that £306,00 in 2009/2010, while the current chief executive earns '%20 more than the prime minister.'
...
The commission's annual report showed that five members of the team were paid a total of £750,000 in the 2009/10 financial year. ...
[Former chief executive Carolyn Regan] was paid £23,000 as a performance bonus during the year.

17.01.11 Extract from article in Law Society Gazette 09.12.10 p.4 by Catherine Baksi
Legal aid minister Jonathan Djanogly has proposed that family solicitors should recieve £150 to provide legal help to clients who engage in mediation, to demonstrate the government's commitment to alternative dispute resolution.

11.11.10 Extract from article in Law Society Gazette p.1 by Catherine Baksi & Paul Rogerson
More than 8 out of 10 people think civil legal advice should be free for those below average earnings. GfK NOP's opinion poll showed 84percent felt advice on civil law problems like money, benefits, employment, and housing should be free either to everyone or else to those with lower than average earnings. Only 1 in 10 believed they should be available only to those on benefits.

Extract from Law Society Gazette 28.10.10 p.4 article by Catherine Baksi
A demographic time bomb threatens criminal Legal Aid as numbers of young defence lawyers has fallen significantly. Ri8chaqrd Miller, head of Legal Aid at The Law Society, said the shortfall was due to the loss of Legal Services Commission training grants, and uncertainty over the future of criminal legal services, among other things.

Extract from a letter in 'Law Society Gazette' 28.10.10, from Debra Wilson of Anthony Gold
A lack of ring-fencing between criminal and civil legal aid bugets, a lack of understanding of the businesses who undertake publicly-funded work, and no interest in what experienced legal aid practitioners have been saying is wrong with the system, is at the heart of the mess over Legal Aid. With firms closing and no investment in Legal Aid practitioners, it will be left to the less qualified and the less experienced to cope.

resumé by The Law Society of the High Court's judgement again the Legal Services Commission's family law Legal Aid tendering process, 6.10.10
The court found that the LSC had acted irrationally, unfairly and arbitrarily and the court declared the tender process unlawful, thus requiring that the LSC extend the existing contracts. It was stressed that the solicitors who had been excluded were doing difficult and demanding work for little or no reward, that they offered a quality service and that, if the LSC had told them in good time what was required, they could have complied with the provisions of the tender.

5.10.10 extract from press release by The Law Society 30.9.10
The High Court today declared that the Legal Services Commission's (LSC) family legal aid tender round was unlawful and severely hindered access to justice for vulnerable children and their parents.
The decision follows a three-day hearing of The Law Society's application for judicial review at the Divisional Court.
Law Society President Linda Lee said today's win is a victory for the thousands of families who would have been left without access to legal assistance when faced with state intervention in their family or the consequences of the breakdown of a relationship. She added:
'The failure of the LSC to anticipate, let alone manage, the outcome of the process was the latest and perhaps most alarming of the LSC's apparently haphazard attempts to reshape legal aid. We are extremely disappointed to have been left with no choice but to take legal action against the LSC, which refused to acknowledge the detrimental effect that this outcome would have on families.
'The LSC's actions would have seen the number of offices where the public could get subsidised help with family cases drastically cut from 2,400 to 1,300. That would have translated into thousands of people facing grave difficulty in obtaining justice –- ordinary people who are already facing extraordinary difficulties. Legal aid clients are some of the most vulnerable in society, and access to legal representation where required is their only hope of achieving justice.
'The Law Society has always maintained that this major restructuring of the legal aid market would cause immense uncertainly and instability for many of the poorest and most vulnerable. It is regrettable that the LSC didn't stop to consider the consequences of its actions, before pushing ahead and cutting vital services that clients need and that a civilised society expects to be provided.
'We hope that whatever steps the LSC now takes will see legal aid contracts properly distributed across England and Wales to ensure all families in need have access to justice.'

9.9.10 extracted from article by Linda Lee, President of The Law Society, in Law Society Gazette
[In taking] action against the Legal Services Commission over the recent outcome of the family legal aid tender round...The Law Society is acting in the interests of those thousands of families who will be denied access to justice.
As lawyers we are bonded by our shared sense of duty to uphold the rule of law, which is why I know that many legal professionals share our concerns.
Disruption to services has already started -- many law firms are beginning to close, and skilled and experienced staff are beginning to leave the sector....highly skilled and committed solicitors, and their staff, who have dedicated their working lives to this area of practice, despite low pay and uncertainty....
We remain dedicated to ensuring that no matter who you are, you have the same access to justice as the next person.

14.8.10 includes extracts from Guardian report
A survey by Resolution, the solicitors family law group, found that "90 percent of family lawyers believe the latest legal aid moves will damage access to justice and result in widespread redundancies across the profession." David Allison, Chair of Resolution, said “The number of family legal aid firms has been significantly cut with the LSC’s own figures showing a reduction in the number of firms across the country from 4,500 in 2000 to 1,300 in 2010.” “There are signs already of movement in the market, with mergers, acquisitions and movement of staff, but it remains to be seen whether the market can fully adjust quickly enough. Whilst we knew that competitive tendering was coming, delays in the award of contracts has left firms little time to open new offices, make people redundant or plan recruitments,” he added.

One respondent to the Resolution survey pointed out that “Some of those who failed are the preferred choice for the police Independent Domestic Violence Advocates who are involved in running the women’s refuge.” The survey also pointed to signs of emerging advice deserts in a number of areas. Members in Dorset, Cornwall, Bedfordshire and Lincolnshire in particular have expressed grave concerns that the number of legal aid providers will be insufficient to meet demand.

summary of information from The Law Society, Thursday 29 July 2010

Of 2,400 family law solicitors firms, only 1,300 have been allocated a contract by the Legal Service Commission to work on cases that get Legal Aid funding. Around 30 per cent of firms bidding for social welfare law categories have been unsuccessful, and will no longer be able to carry out Legal Aid work in this field. This is despite the fact that the Legal Services Commission, which allocates Legal Aid resources and which ran the tender, stated in January that: 'it is not our intention that the tender round should significantly reduce the provider base'.

The effect of such a massive reduction in the number of firms is that tens of thousands of clients are likely to be forced to find a new family solicitor, all at the same time when the new tender system comes into force in October. The Law Society believes that it is vital for the public interest that the Government should intervene to avoid the unplanned and serious consequences of this decision.

The full notice from The Law Society can be found at www.lawsociety.org.uk/newsandevents/news/view=newsarticle.law?NEWSID=429205

You can contact The Law Society's Legal Aid campaign at: defendinglegalaid@lawsociety.org.uk

Lobbying support You can help by highlighting the issue to your MP and urging them to contact the Legal Aid Minister.
Find your local MP

20.12.09
The public spending watchdog, The National Audit Office (NAO), has reported that one in six firms conducting publicly funded criminal defence work made no profit from it, while 14 percent made only one to five percent profit. Only half of the 369 firms surveyed expect to still be doing this work in five years' time.

Amyas Morse, who heads the NAO, said the Legal Services Commission (LSC) must make it a priority to ensure 'it is paying a fair price for legal aid services that both sustains a competitive supplier base and provides value for money.' Richard Miller, legal aid manager for The Law Society, said 'This report goes a long way in dispelling the belief that legal aid lawyers are profiteering from the system...This is a picture of a supplier base on the point of crumbling into insolvency.'
from a report in the Law Society Gazette 3.12.09

Meanwhile, Lord Bach has raised some hackles in the law professions by apparently supporting compulsory pro bono legal aid provision by lawyers -- that is, without charge (and so without income to the lawyers). A legal aid lawyer doing family law work, writing in the same issue of the Gazette, says "We do valuable work supporting many vulnerable families and children. It is nothing short of a disgrace that our society has reached the stage where it needs legal aid lawyers to work for free."

In the same issue of the Gazette, Phil Shiner, a human rights lawyer and head of Public Interest Lawyers, warns that the Ministry of Justice and the LSC propose removing all legal aid for non-residents in the UK. He points out that this would remove the ability of those who have allegedly suffered abuses in overseas wars from attempting to obtain redress in this country, so that "these most serious of alleged human rights abuses would remain uncovered."

20.11.09 The Law Society criticised the increasing paucity of cases being accepted by the Legal Services Commission (LSC) for family legal aid and social welfare work. A number of firms had said they were now facing having to turn needy clients away and running out of work.
from The Law Society President's Update for solicitors

19.11.09
The Law Society criticised the latest Government proposals to slash legal aid fees as devoid of economic rationale or analysis, following news that legal aid lawyers are paid less than sewage workers. Chief executive Desmond Hudson says, 'There is clearly no scope left for cutting fees' in what the Society describes as a 'thread-bare system'.
from a Law Society press release

15.10.09:
The Ministry of Justice has announced today that a review into the delivery of legal aid would be undertaken by Sir Ian Magee. Commenting on the announcement Law Society president, Robert Heslett, said:
'We look forward to meeting Sir Ian and engaging with his work. There are significant problems with the current legal aid system, which needs an urgent review and we welcome the decision to take that forward.
'The review needs to be about the long term strategy for legal aid services. The system too often ignores the importance of a stable supplier base, which has reduced over years, as has access to justice.
'The Law Society is pursuing a review of access to justice which, in engaging with other stakeholders, will inform and assist the determination of the future of legal aid provision.
'Our review will be looking at many of these issues and we hope that our emerging ideas will be of assistance to Sir Ian'.
from a Law Society press release

3.8.09 Commenting on the crisis facing access to justice as the country today marks the 60th anniversary of legal aid, Richard Miller, Head of Legal Aid at the Law Society, said:
"The government is slowly strangling publicly funded access to justice and damaging many people's life chances as a result. We still have a legal aid system to be proud of, but it is getting worse, not better because it's living off the crumbs from the Government's table. We need to ask the fundamental question: What is legal aid for? The original definition was to ensure that nobody is unable to enforce or defend a right for want of the means to do so. That remains a good principle, which we need to put into practice. The future is not looking good: we are facing further cuts. The recession means more people qualify for legal aid and more people need services, in spite of that the Government is cutting funding. Yet the money spent on bank bailouts would run legal aid for several hundred years. The Law Society is working to develop a new approach to securing a sustainable future for publicly-funded access to justice."
"Within the next three months all firms doing any type of legal aid work will have to bid to be allowed to continue doing it. We don't know on what terms, or how the Government will decide who is allowed to carry on doing the work, but firms will be asked to work until 2013 on 2007/08 rates. Fixed fees at low levels mean that solicitors are often not paid enough to cover the cost of doing cases, so they are having to cut back on the service they provide to clients. Some lawyers can't operate on such meagre resources, so it is becoming more difficult for clients to get the service they need to make access to justice a reality."
"The Law Society is supporting law firms throughout this difficult process we reiterate our concern that these proposals will undermine a justice system already creaking at the seams."

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