All Legal aid and access to justice articles – Page 107
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NewsLegal aid reforms at odds with Cameron’s SME targets
Reforms to legal aid are at odds with the prime minister’s ambition to break big businesses’ stranglehold on government contracts, we reveal.
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News
Solicitors to be balloted on crime proposals
The London Criminal Courts Solicitors Association (LCCSA) is to ballot members on how it should respond to proposed alternatives to the government’s planned shake-up of criminal legal aid
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News
Criminal defence firm closes its doors
A leading criminal defence firm has applied to go into voluntary administration, sparking fears that other firms will follow suit.
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News
Commons whiplash inquiry finds for claimants
MPs today warn the government that its plans to cut the cost of whiplash claims will impair access to justice and leave the door open for claims management companies.
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NewsRetired appeal judge slams ‘substandard’ aid cuts
Government proposals to restrict legal aid for judicial review will turn the clock back 50 years and perpetrate ‘significant and damaging injustice'
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News
Happy birthday, legal aid
Lawyers are getting rather good at demonstrating noisily against government plans to ‘transform’ legal aid.
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News
Legal aid: ‘justice is ours’
Serious miscarriages of justice will go uncorrected if the government pushes through planned legal aid cuts, a demonstration outside London’s Old Bailey heard.
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Opinion
£10 too wealthy for legal aid
Today I received an application from an individual who was roughly £18 per month too wealthy to qualify for legal aid.
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Opinion
Legal aid: children suffer
Comments by Charles Falconer QC in The Times law section regarding a tightening of the process in criminal and family care cases are worthy of careful attention. On the face of it, removal of private law family legal aid is serving the same purpose, except that it has produced the ...
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NewsJudicial satire is deadly serious
Price-competitive tendering for judges. That is the subject of a spoof essay of application for the job of lord chief justice, penned by Court of Appeal judge Sir Alan Moses (‘aged 67½’), demonstrating the absurdity of the government’s planned legal aid reforms. The sitting judge read his work ‘What I ...
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News
'Little hope' for sole practitioners in criminal defence
There is ‘little hope for the future’ for sole practitioners and many small law firms under either the government’s or Law Society’s proposals for reshaping the criminal defence market, the Sole Practitioners Group has claimed. The group’s legal aid spokesperson, former chair Hilary Underwood, told the Gazette that under either ...
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Opinion
Legal aid proposals intended to strengthen the power of the state
No one can say that I have not done my bit for the profession
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News
Law Society alternative legal aid proposals
The Law Society last week published alternative proposals to the government’s Transforming Legal Aid plan, saying they would retain client choice, provide certainty and facilitate greater market efficiency. On contracting, the Society proposes: Rolling three-year contracts, awarded subject to an increasingly rigorous quality and capacity framework (QCF). Contracts will ...
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News
Criminal bar chair backs Law Society’s stance on legal aid
The chairman of the Criminal Bar Association has called for unity in the profession and attempted to quell ‘disquiet’ over the Law Society’s decision to share with the Ministry of Justice its proposals for an alternative to price-competitive tendering (PCT). In his weekly online comment, Michael Turner QC said that ...
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OpinionVulnerable people are most at risk from PCT
The legal profession has been up in arms over the proposed introduction of price-competitive tendering. But no one should be more concerned than individuals living with learning difficulties and disabilities such as autism, because they are the ones most at risk as a result of the changes. Criminal defence specialists ...
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Opinion
Duty freedom
I write with reference to the letter from Alexander McCulloch. It is incorrect to claim, as he does, that the current system deprives any person charged with a criminal offence of the ability to choose their own solicitor. The duty solicitor scheme certainly forwards a client to whoever is on ...
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Opinion
Client choice
No, Mr McCulloch. Manchester set up a voluntary court duty solicitor scheme at about the same time as Southampton. Birmingham came soon afterwards, building in particular on the Manchester template. I know this because I was involved. We then expanded it to include a police station scheme, and all of ...
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News
Birmingham Law Centre closes as cash runs out
Britain’s second city is without a law centre following the closure of Birmingham Law Centre last week. Cashflow problems and the anticipated fall in legal aid funding led the trustees to shut down the service, which is descended from bodies that have offered free legal advice for nearly a century. ...
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FeatureNew legal aid regulations
The latest criminal legal aid regime came into force on 1 April for all grants of legal aid made on or after that date. The old law will continue to apply for a considerable time in relation to cases where legal aid was granted before then. Because of changes to ...