Legal and human rights groups have warned that plans to restrict asylum seekers to a maximum of five hours' initial legal advice will put solicitors in a tough professional position and lead to an exodus from the field.

Responding to the government's consultation on changes to publicly funded immigration and asylum work (see [2003] Gazette, 12 June, 1), the Law Society said the limit is wholly unrealistic and poses a serious threat to access to justice.

It said the government has offered no evidence to justify the change, while a survey the Society conducted showed the average length of time taken to prepare an asylum application to be ten hours.

Law Society chief executive Janet Paraskeva said: 'Many asylum applicants do not speak English and using interpreters doubles the time a solicitor must spend with clients.

Complex cases and those involving children or people with serious health problems cannot be prepared properly in five hours...

Poorly presented cases will simply prolong asylum hearings and increase costs.'

The Society warned that the proposed limit may create 'substantial dilemmas' for solicitors in relation to their professional obligations, predicting that many will either leave the field or significantly reduce the amount of the work they do.

Legal Aid Practitioners Group director Richard Miller said the limit bears 'no resemblance either to best practice or to what reputable immigration practitioners currently do for such clients'.

Both the group and Amnesty International said they shared the fear that specialists would quit the work.

'Many high-calibre specialists have already said to us that they would have to close their firms if the changes are introduced, as they believe it would be impossible to meet their professional duties to the client and impossible to survive economically,' Mr Miller said.

Jan Shaw, Amnesty's refugee affairs programme director, said: 'These cutbacks risk eroding legal protection for asylum-seekers, while heightening the risk of people being wrongly returned to countries where access to justice is regularly denied.'