Immigration solicitors fear pay shake-up may diminish their role in handling cases

FUNDING: practitioners claim proposals would impose limits on their day-to-day work

Immigration law solicitors have slated Legal Services Commission (LSC) plans to overhaul the way it pays out for legally aided work, amid fears that the changes would severely hinder solicitors' discretion to self-authorise for certain types of work.

Lawyers at an emergency meeting held by the Law Society, Legal Aid Practitioners Group (LAPG) and the Immigration Law Practitioners Association, heard that the proposed funding guidelines for the LSC's controlled legal representation (CLR) scheme would be based on the likely outcome of the next hearing.

Practitioners currently take on work relating to the immigration appeals tribunal and immigration adjudicators after applying a merits test which examines the likely result of the litigation as a whole.

The LSC has also recommended that solicitors should not take into consideration the likelihood of the decisions being overturned by the Home Office.

Solicitors at the meeting said the plans did not take account of clients' circumstances, and would impose 'significant' time and other limits on their day-to-day work.

They also feared that funding for test cases would be cut.

The three groups are compiling a joint response before meeting LSC chiefs next month.

Speaking after the meeting, LAPG board member Wesley Gryk called on the LSC to implement an effective CLR monitoring system, rather than 'seek to micro-manage the decision-making process of individual immigration practitioners'.

He added: 'The LSC is in effect trying to take away the discretion of skilled practitioners to decide which cases are genuinely worth fighting.'

A Law Society spokeswoman said that early access to good-quality legal advice was essential in the proper and speedy determination of immigration applications.

'The LSC assures us that any case with a good chance of success will still receive funding.

Nonetheless, we remain concerned that applicants funded under current rules will no longer receive public funding.'

An LSC spokesman said consultation was open until 9 September and it was premature to comment.

Paula Rohan