Fears are growing that many immigration and asylum lawyers have decided to pull out and move into more profitable work with the deadline approaching for them to be accredited and keep legal aid funding.

The Legal Services Commission, which said this week it is still confident it will have enough accredited advisers to meet demand, initially anticipated 4,000 solicitors and paralegals from private practice firms and law centres would apply for accreditation. Advisers who have not been accredited will not be able to receive legal aid after 1 April 2005.


The commission revised that figure downwards this summer, when only 2,500 declared an intention to continue with legal aid work - of those, only 200 were from law centres. Now, with only two more training dates available in November and February, just 934 have come forward so far, according to Central Law Training which is running the accreditation scheme training on behalf of the Law Society.


The exams and interview on immigration law and practice was introduced by the Department for Constitutional Affairs and Law Society in a move supported by the law centres and solicitors to eliminate 'cowboy' advisers abusing legal aid.


Steve Hynes, director of the Law Centres Federation, said: 'I'd like to be proved wrong, but at the moment we seem to be heading for a shortfall of around 1,000 by April.' He said advisers who waited until February and then failed would not have time to re-sit before the April cut-off date.


Patricia Adair, director of professional legal training at Central Law Training, said there is enough capacity for all the remaining 1,600 advisers to sit for accreditation in November if they apply by 16 November, or if they prefer, in February.


Alison Stanley, a partner at London firm Bindmans and chairwoman of the Law Society's immigration law committee, said she feared a measure intended to improve the standards of immigration advisers could have the consequence of losing some of the best ones.



'I would not be surprised to see firms pulling out or only training some of their existing advisers to sit the exam,' she said.