All Legal aid and access to justice articles – Page 111
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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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News
Anger as MoJ accused of deleting legal aid consultation responses
The Ministry of Justice has claimed that an ‘email glitch’ is to blame for many barristers and solicitors receiving a message telling them that their response to the Transforming Legal Aid consultation has been ‘deleted unread’. The Gazette, together with the Law Society, Bar Council and other practitioner groups, have ...
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News
City lawyers join fight against legal aid cuts – finally
City law firms have joined the attack on the government’s legal aid cuts, warning that they ‘pose a potentially irreversible risk to the standards and reputation of English justice’. In a letter to the Law Society, the chairman of the City of London Law Society Alasdair Douglas criticised the ‘grossly ...
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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 ...
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Opinion
Lib Dems fighting legal aid cuts
I was very disappointed to read about Ian Craine’s experience of trying to discuss proposed changes to legal aid with Liberal Democrat MPs. May I assure him that the Liberal Democrat Lawyers Association is lobbying hard over these proposals to try and persuade our MPs that they are misguided. So ...
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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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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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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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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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News
Clegg fuels rumours of cabinet split over legal aid
Signs of a cabinet split over the government’s legal aid proposals have emerged after the deputy prime minister voiced concern over the removal of client choice and the attorney general appeared to endorse barristers’ concerns that the changes would ‘damage the justice system’. The Mail on Sunday reported yesterday that ...
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News
Bar chief calls for royal commission
More than two decades after the Runciman Commission was set up following high-profile miscarriages of justice, the chairman of the Bar Council has called for a royal commission to conduct a root-and-branch review of the criminal justice system. Maura McGowan suggested that the system be reviewed holistically, as the government ...
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Opinion
PCT: choice words
I cannot let Alexander McCulloch’s letter pass without comment. His comparison of the old duty solicitor scheme with Grayling’s price-competitive tendering is invidious. I was a duty solicitor for many years; the scheme was never about restriction of choice. Both at the police station and at the magistrates’ court the ...
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News
Juniors ‘on £14 a day’ after legal aid cuts, MPs hear
Junior barristers will be paid as little as £14 a day – well below the minimum wage – under the government’s proposed criminal legal aid cuts, the House of Commons justice committee heard today.
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News
Bar regulator condemns legal aid plans
The Ministry of Justice’s ‘muddled’ and ‘fundamentally flawed’ legal aid reforms have been savaged by the bar’s representative and regulatory bodies.
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News
Bar bodies condemn legal aid plans
The Ministry of Justice’s ‘muddled’ and ‘fundamentally flawed’ legal aid reforms have been savaged by the bar’s representative and regulatory bodies.
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Opinion
Wounded legal aid firms fight back
We are being invited to enter a brave new world of price competition
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News
JR legal aid cuts ‘immunise government from challenge’ - silks
Ninety QCs have warned that government plans to cut legal aid for judicial review will ‘immunise’ the state from legal challenge.
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News
Legal aid cuts ‘will hammer middle England’
Four out of five adults in England and Wales would be unable to pay for a lawyer
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News
Fixed fees in legal aid ruled unlawful – in New Zealand
The Court of Appeal in New Zealand has ruled that a planned legal aid shakeup to introduce fixed fees is unlawful.
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FeatureLaw centres: living on the edge
Last week’s London Legal Walk, coming weeks after swingeing legal aid cuts were introduced, could be read as a show of strength by the whole legal community.