I am currently conducting a case referred back to the Court of Appeal by the Criminal Cases Review Commission. My experience may perhaps refute the suggestion that solicitors are not taking applications to the CCRC seriously, and provide greater insight into the potential funding difficulties faced by solicitors who take such cases on (see [2005] Gazette, 28 July, 1).

My client is a man of modest means but he is not on benefits. He was not eligible for legal aid under a CDS2 form and I therefore agreed a nominal hourly rate with him. Owing to his limited means I was very limited in the amount of work that I could conduct on his behalf, to the extent of not being able fully to consider all the case papers forwarded to me, which ran to several hundred pages.


It would have been wholly unrealistic to have expected me to prepare the case concerned on a full pro bono basis given the volume of material and the amount of liaison required with the CCRC, and indeed other parties such as my client's former solicitors.


The problems of funding such cases were aggravated through no fault of the CCRC by the very detailed investigation that it conducted into my client's case, which took more than two years before the final referral decision was made.


It might be appropriate for the CCRC to conduct a door-keeping exercise for applications submitted to it, with those passing an initial test being eligible for proper legal aid through a designated budget.


Edmund Conybeare, Shulmans, Leeds