City law firms are set to put hundreds of thousands of pounds into London's voluntary legal sector by handing over the interest earned through consolidating client monies on deposit, it emerged this week.

Magic circle firm Allen & Overy is spearheading the scheme, and anticipates contributing £200,000 to the London Legal Support Trust (LSST) over the next three years.


Senior partner Guy Beringer said he hoped the arrangement would be adopted by other firms with more than 20 partners, but urged the government to make a similar funding commitment. 'We stress that this is not a way of enabling the government to reduce its obligation to provide a publicly funded service,' he argued.


Bob Nightingale, head of Battersea law centre, who chairs the trust, welcomed the scheme and said the LLST had had expressions of interest from other City firms.


He dismissed the idea of compulsory payments from interest into public funds, as occurs in other countries such as Australia, saying it would cause many legal aid firms [which need the money] to go out of business. 'We are not asking for any sort of taxation on the legal profession,' he said.


Mr Nightingale added that A&O's contribution was welcome, but was a 'drop in the ocean' when it came to the problems faced by civil legal aid. 'If a significant proportion of the top 50 firms joined in, we could make a real difference,' he urged.


A Law Society spokeswoman said: 'We have no plans to make it compulsory for law firms to hand over interest from client accounts.'


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