The government is expected to seek to remove most personal injury (PI) cases from the scope of legal aid in its Access to Justice Bill, due to be published this week, despite earlier signs that it was wavering on the exclusion.The move ends months of speculation over whether the Lord Chancellor, Lord Irvine, would scrap his plans to consign all PI cases to the poorly-charted territory of conditional fee agreements (CFAs).In recent weeks, he had hinted at a delay in order to give CFAs and the emerging legal expenses insurance market time to prove themselves a viable alternative to legal aid.However, it is expected that under the Bill, the Lord Chancellor would retain discretion to direct that certain types of PI cases, for instance those involving high investigation costs, should qualify for legal aid.

It is also believed that ministers would have powers to alter the range of cases beyond the scope of legal aid simply by secondary legislation.A Modernising Justice white paper was expected to accompany the Bill this week, to set out the wider context of the reforms.

The government hopes the Access to Justice Bill will have its second reading in Parliament before Christmas and receive Royal Assent in July 1999.

If all goes to plan, the earliest the Act's main provisions could be in force would be January 2000.As expected, under the Bill, state funding would remain available for clinical negligence cases, while success fees in CFAs cases - along with insurance premiums - would be made recoverable from losing parties.As reported last week, the Bill would extend higher rights of audience and create a Legal Services Commission (LSC) in charge of a Criminal Defence Service for criminal cases and a Community Legal Service for civil cases.

All civil legal aid would be brought under contract by April 2001 and criminal by 2003.It is understood that the Bill would give the LSC powers to create a central fund for high cost and public interest cases.

However, the government hopes that a new merits test, or 'funding assessment', would be flexible enough to enable most public interest cases to qualify for legal aid.It is anticipated that, at least initially, the criminal and community services would be run together by the LSC.

But under powers granted in the Bill, they would be run separately in the longer term.

The LSC would have flexibility to move funds within and between the community service's regional budgets to meet fluctuations in demand for civil legal aid.

Within the LSC's central budget there would be separate budgets for family and civil non-family work.It is expected that the LSC would guarantee funds for all child care cases.Regarding concerns over the independence of employed barristers with higher rights of audience, it is believed that the Bill would legislate for the primacy of an advocate's ethical duty to the court above that of his or her employer's code of practice.