My firm has also declined to signed up to the Legal Service Commission's fixed-fee civil legal aid scheme as a matter of principle - and probably at some considerable short-term financial loss (see [2004] Gazette, 28 October, 15).


The situation is more serious than Saimo Chahal makes out, especially for solicitors who work in the unglamorous area of community care. We have the same issues as solicitors representing mental health clients (my only other client group), in that it is often necessary to instruct expensive experts to challenge the view of a local authority. Add to this the fact that your clients have complex needs, are often children or otherwise lack capacity, and may be very needy.


We are, of course, encouraged to negotiate through the treacle laid out by local authorities and not to head straight to the courts, but how do you square that with fixed fees?


If fixed fees are introduced, they will destroy the only chance that some of the most vulnerable in society have of obtaining justice. Is that really what the commission wants?



Julie Burton, solicitor, Bangor, Wales