Criminal law solicitors anticipate 'blood on the walls' over Legal Services Commission (LSC) plans to introduce competitive tendering in London - with firms in the regions gearing up for an even more cut-throat business environment if the scheme is rolled out nationally.

The LSC last week proposed a two-stage pilot where London firms will undergo a quality test before tendering a set price for each case that comes up in the police station or magistrates' court through duty solicitor slots.


It denied this would lead to a big reduction in London firms, but admitted it was likely to result in fewer suppliers. It plans to expand the scheme across the country if it proves effective, and has raised the question of whether the regime could be applied in civil legal aid.


LSC service design executive Jonathan Lindley said it hoped tendering would help control the criminal legal aid budget - which had now reached £1.1 billion a year - and give firms an opportunity to develop, as well as bring new suppliers into the system. 'The rising expenditure on criminal legal aid is putting pressure on the Community Legal Service and civil expenditure,' he said.


But angry solicitors - who have not ruled out a boycott - said the quality thresholds were so low that even the most renowned firms could be kicked out if they were undercut.


Stephen Hewitt, managing partner at leading south London firm Fisher Meredith, urged the LSC to 'tear the whole thing up and start again'. He warned: 'There will be blood on the walls over this. Most firms will be able to achieve the quality threshold, and then the selection will be based on price. Clients will find that cases won't be prepared properly because firms bidding at the lowest prices will do the minimum work.'


Angela Campbell, chairwoman of the London Criminal Court Solicitors Association, agreed: 'The LSC is driving people to run practices from their front rooms. If firms have to cut costs, they will have to drive down overheads too.'


Rodney Warren, director of the Criminal Law Solicitors Association, said any problems in the legal aid process were down to the LSC itself. 'They have created a restricted market,' he argued. 'They have been promoting working in partnership, but now they think they can turn the entire process on its head.'


Regional firms also predicted disaster if the scheme was rolled out. Danny Simpson, partner at Sheffield firm Howells, said: 'Firms will be terrified about being underbid by their rivals, and will see that the obvious solution is to reach agreement about what they are going to bid.'


The Legal Aid Practitioners Group also slated the plans - and called on firms to be realistic when calculating what they would bid. 'They must bid on economically rational grounds,' director Richard Miller urged.


Yvonne Brown, head of the Black Solicitors Network, said her members could not afford consultants to devise their bids and would lose out.


See Editorial