Ethnic law firms hit by contracting, survey showsFears that ethnic minority law firms would be disproportionately affected by the introduction of legal aid contracting seem to have been borne out by extensive Legal Services Commission (LSC) research released this week.

The 'equal opportunities survey' showed that although 8.8% of firms which applied for a contract were under ethnic minority control, 16.9% of the firms which were not awarded contracts were under ethnic minority control.As a result, there was a small drop in ethnic minority firms doing legal aid work after contracting was introduced.

The report attributed ongoing law firm restructuring and a failure or anticipated failure to meet the LSC's quality standards as the main reasons why firms either failed to win contracts or withdrew from the bidding process.

There was a 'significant variation' in the focus of legal aid undertaken by firms with different ethnic ownership.

Whereas just 6% of family contracts and mental health contracts were let to ethnic minority firms, 55% of immigration law contracts went to such firms.

The report also showed that a higher proportion of ethnic minority solicitors undertake legal aid work (8.6%) than the representation of ethnic minority solicitors in private practice as a whole (6%).

In an effort to address any potential imbalance of organisations in the contracting process, the LSC has proposed: giving additional help to firms seeking to meet the quality standards in immigration and mental health; reviewing the audit and contracting process; further investigating the effect of audit failure on solicitors' firms; and reviewing the development of quality requirements for contracting in relation to the size of different firms.

Chris Boothman, legal director of the Commission for Racial Equality, said: 'The CRE welcomes this innovative piece of work as an important and necessary step along the way to ensuring equality of opportunity in the contracting process.' Neil Rose