I would like to clarify some important points in relation to last week’s story about immigration lawyers being unhappy over the new accreditation process (see [2010] Gazette, 25 February, 4).

The Law Society has adopted a policy in relation to all the accreditation schemes it runs to ensure that they are proportionate and fair for practitioners, while promoting best practice and high standards in the consumer and public interest. Immigration panel membership is mandatory for publicly funded immigration and asylum work, and gives practitioners a means of demonstrating that they are specialists and experts.

Immigration practitioners were aware from the beginning that they would need to be reaccredited at appropriate intervals, both as a matter of good practice and to enable all existing scheme members to be able to fulfil the Legal Services Commission criteria for this type of publicly funded work.

For those members whose accreditation expired on 31 December 2009, the LSC 2010 contract round required them to be reaccredited by 31 July to take up the contracts commencing 1 October 2010.

The Law Society was successful in securing LSC agreement to extend the original deadline of 31 July 2010 to March 2011, so that firms can plan and phase in their assessments, especially where they have multiple candidates.

Firms awarded a contract can apply for the 50% subsidy towards the cost of the assessment.

The LSC called for a two-stage process for reaccreditation, involving a three-hour exam and the submission of a portfolio of cases, which required evidence across a number of areas within this field. The Law Society took the view that this was disproportionate and costly to administer and assess.

The Society’s Immigration Technical Board, consisting of leading practitioners and representatives of the Immigration Law Practitioners Association, was set up to deal objectively with such issues and it was they, and they alone, who chose how to deal with the 2010 reassessment.

They took into account the requirements of the LSC and the need to reflect the pressures on immigration practitioners. They considered all the options and decided that a two-hour exam was the least burdensome for practitioners to enable them to meet the LSC mandatory requirement and to satisfy the public interest.

Desmond Hudson Chief executive, Law Society