After doing legal aid work for more than 30 years, I looked at the Carter review and the Legal Services Commission consultation paper in disbelief.


For family work, it is said that the proposals are cost neutral - which means, one would think, that the aim is that we get the same as we did before. For solicitors and our promotion of specialist panels and advocacy, this is patently untrue, and money taken from us will go to the bar.



The children panel will cease to have any relevance, and panel members will definitely get 7% or 8% less than they did before - the consultation says so specifically. How is that cost neutral? Furthermore, the bar will be paid graduated fees for all hearings in care cases, but solicitors will get a low fixed fee to cover all hearings; £502 to cover all hearings is ridiculous.



This is going to test the resolve of everyone to fight for solicitors' livelihoods. We are going to have to get it across to the public that the affairs of vulnerable children and their vulnerable parents can only be represented by a specialist panel of qualified solicitors who are trained and police checked.



To ensure that solicitors do not lose money on advocacy, they will be forced to hand over all advocacy to barristers. Thus, 'cost neutral' means solicitors will lose a great deal of money that will be given to barristers who will have no idea what their child client looks like or thinks.



The Law Society will have to stand up to the government and the bar and tell them that we will not accept this.



Bruce Edgington, Gravesend, Kent