Clear guidance

Is the item under the headline suggesting the legal aid cuts have stopped people from getting financial help to sue negligent solicitors, unduly alarmist (see [2000] Gazette, 17 August, 4)?

Guidance issued by the Lord Chancellor under section 23 of the Access to Justice Act 1999 set in the Legal Services Commission's decision-making guidance on the funding code makes it clear that paragraph 1(a) of schedule 2 to the Act is not intended to exclude claims for professional negligence arising, for example, from solicitors failing to issue personal injury proceedings within the limitation period.

The guidance goes on: 'A professional negligence claim might still be excluded by one of the other provisions of paragraph 1, for example if the original legal claim concerned the conduct of a case arising in the carrying on of business.'

I, myself, have a client who has received an offer of funding from the Commission in respect of proceedings for professional negligence in the handling of other proceedings for professional negligence committed in the course of a conveyancing transaction.

Christopher Harper, Gregory Rowcliffe & Milners, London