The main points of Lord Irvine's proposals:-- Widest possible extension of conditional fee arrangements and removal of legal aid from all civil money or damages claims.-- Introduction of contracts for legally aided work at agreed,fixed prices.-- Tightening of the merits test where legal aid is still available.-- Adoption of Woolf reforms.SUMMARY:-- Contracting of legal services in civil and criminal cases.

In medium term a majority of criminal work to be under contract.-- Merits test for grant of legal aid to be raised to 75% to reflect pressure on legal aid budget.-- Solicitors' predictions of the strength of cases to be monitored by the Legal Aid Board against achieved outcomes.-- Award and continuation of contracts to be dependent on outcomes and other quality measures to be consulted upon.-- Special arrangements for public interest cases, perhaps funded by a LAB-run reserve and supervised by judges.-- Consultation on maximum possible extension of conditional fee agreements to all civil cases except family, from April 1998.-- Consultation on a contingency legal aid fund, on legal aid being available to fund legal costs insurance premiums and on making medical negligence a special case.-- In the longer term a community legal service to co-ordinate work of voluntary sector agencies, advised on local priorities by regional legal services committees.-- Extension of court fees exemptions to wider range of benefit recipients.-- Adoption of Woolf's judicial case management proposals.-- Creation of a fast-track route for cases subject to fixed timetable with cases usually heard within 30 weeks.

Creation of a multi-track route for other cases.

Both tracks to be running by April 1999, accompanied by fixed costs regime.-- Small claims limit to be raised to £5,000-- Consultation on whether to raise fast-track limit to £15,000.LLEGAL AID FACTS-- 1294 law firms have legal aid franchises-- 1999 offices of law firms have franchises-- 592 applications for franchises are currently being considered-- The net total expenditure on legal aid in the 1996-97 financial year was £1.2 billionWINDS OF CHANGEThe new Lord Chancellor and Sir Peter Middleton have dropped all their bombshells.

Now we analyse the futureof conditional fees, legal aid, and the Woolf reformsROBERT VERKAIK FINDS SOLICITORS SCEPTICAL ABOUT PLANS TO INCREASE THE USE OF CONDITIONAL FEES FOR FORMER LEGAL AID CASESThe Middleton and Irvine vision of using conditional fees to open justice to millions of middle income litigants has received a largely sceptical response from leading litigation lawyers.While Sir Peter Middleton, in his report to the Lord Chancellor, concludes that there is a 'widespread consensus' that conditional fees work, the profession regards the new reforms as too much too soon.Indeed, Michael Napier, chairman of the Law Society's civil litigation committee, suspects that the government is already back-tracking.

He says: 'The government has realised that it has made a mistake in assuming that it can wave a magic ward and transform the apparent success of conditional fees in the limited area of personal injury into the full range of civil litigation.'Mr Napier detected the first break in the government ranks last week when he and Geoff Hoon, the parliamentary secretary at the Lord Chancellor's Department, took part in a Radio 4 phone-in on 'no-win, no-fee' litigation.Mr Napier says: 'Hoon seemed to be retreating from Irvine's position when he said that the government would now look at the possibility of doing something to help people who can't afford to pay the insurance premium or pay a case's start-up costs.'In his speech to the Solicitors' Annual Conference in Cardiff, Lord Irvine made it clear there would be no legal aid for claims involving money or damages which would be covered by conditional fees.Of more concern to the profession is the idea that solicitors should bear the start-up costs of conditional fee litigation.

During the Radio 4 interview, Mr Hoon said solicitors should take on these expenses as a 'business risk'.

Only if the Law Society said this was 'impossible' would the government consider funding preliminary litigation costs for those who qualified for legal aid.Mr Napier says: 'It's unrealistic for the government to assume that solicitors could withstand the amount of extra borrowing that would be necessary to fund not only paying all the [insurance] premiums of these new cases but all the disbursements as well.'Antony Gold, national head of litigation at Eversheds, is more concerned about the impact conditional fees will have on the profession's reputation.He says the new conditional fee arrangements will turn clients' problems into joint ventures with the lawyer playing the part of dominant partner.

Mr Gold maintains that once a case has begun, the self interest of the lawyer will become an important part of how the case is run.

The client's interests will be of secondary importance.

'The most disappointing feature,' says Mr Gold, 'of increasing the prominence of conditional fees is the effect it will have on the impartiality of the lawyer's advice.'Both Mr Napier and Mr Gold question whether in the long term access to justice will be increased.Mr Gold argues that those cases which are considered as having a less than 50% chance of success will fail to attract legal representation.

Mr Gold says: 'I thought it was rather extravagant of the Lord Chancellor to say this was going to improve access to justice because there is going to be a whole swathe of cases which people may actually find it more difficult to pursue than they do at present.'Mr Napier asks: 'Where are these insurers going to come from? There was only one underwriter in the world prepared to underwrite the Accident Line Protect scheme [after-the-event insurance scheme negotiated by the Law Society for personal injury cases].' And Accident Line, says Mr Napier, is a special case where entry is strictly controlled.

'They are dealing with just 1,600 firms which are members of the [Law Society's] personal injury panel and the 30,000 cases which have gone through so far represents about 10% of the total number of personal injury cases ,' he says.Mr Napier says it is 'wildly optimistic' to assume that just because one underwriter is willing to take the risk of making a profit on the personal injury market the rest of the insurance industry will 'stampede' towards the business opportunities of underwriting all civil litigation.Murray Fairclough, a barrister who spent 10 years with the Royal and Sun Alliance-owned Legal Protection Group, a specialist provider of before-the-event insurance, says solicitors will only take those cases which have at least a 75% chance of success.

Mr Fairclough, now an associate lawyer with American law firm Sonnenscheins where he promotes legal expenses insurance, asks: 'What's in it for the guy in the street? Well, for a fixed ticket he can bring a claim, but only on a very good prospect of success.' He says there will be a band of cases which have a reasonable chance of success which will still not be able to find representation.Sir Peter Middleton acknowledges in his report that tailored conditional fee insurance schemes are only part of the picture.

Legal expenses insurance will also be a 'potentially valuable means' of widening access to justice, says Sir Peter, but as yet before-the-even policies have not been properly marketed.Chris Ward, managing director of Abbey Legal Protection, the firm currently managing the Accident Line Protect scheme, concedes conditional fees without insurance cover simply will not work.To this end his company is now undertaking research to assess the commercial viability of underwriting a whole range of legal disputes.While Mr Ward is confident that there will be enough insurance companies willing to underwrite the proposed extension of conditional fees, he says this will have to be done on a similar basis to Accident Line Protect, involving specialist law firms.Mr Ward says: 'We would not be happy with running conditional fee insurance schemes in areas where there's no specialist panels of solicitors or where we could not be assured of quality.' Mr Ward stresses that law firms will have to adapt to running specialist practices.Each new scheme, adds Mr Ward, would be specifically designed to meet the requirement of each different area of litigation.Commercial litigation presents a different problem.

So far few City lawyers say they have detected any genuine demand for 'no-won, no-fee.' Eversheds is typical of the way many commercial law firms are looking at conditional fees.

It is currently monitoring the position with a view to providing 'no-win, no-fee' arrangements where they can pinpoint a real interest from their clients, says Mr Gold.

But Mr Ward questions whether heavy-hitting litigation departments will want to run six-figure cases on a conditional fee basis where they have no guarantee of being paid.

It will be clients, maintains Mr Ward, who will drive conditional fees.

Introducing conditional fees in the City is not in the lawyer's interest, says Mr Ward.

Putting legal services out to tender on a conditional fee basis will be one way clients drive the reform in the City, he predicts.FIONA BAWDON LOOKS AT HOW WHAT IS LEFT OF THE LEGAL AID CAKE WILL BE SHARED OUT VIA FRANCHISES AND BLOCK CONTRACTS FOR FIRMS'The death of legal aid.' This was how one observer reacted to the news of Lord Irvine's plans for reforming civil justice.

While a more considered response might be less apocalyptic, legal aid, while not dead, will certainly be a shadow of its former self if the Lord Chancellor's proposals go ahead.

If that is the case, legal aid will be restricted to crime and non-monet ary civil cases--for example, family, housing, social welfare and judicial review--only.

'The way ahead is contracts that will specify in advance just what services are being bought, and at exactly what prices,' Lord Irvine told the Solicitors' Annual Conference in Cardiff.

For the first time, contracts will apply to both criminal and civil legal aid work and will 'in time, be restricted to those providers who have a contract with the Legal Aid Board'.

Lord Irvine said there must be an end to 'woolly unquantified advice', that 'lawyers must become more precise in their predictions.

Those predictions should be monitored by the Legal Aid Board, against achieved outcomes.' Firms which failed to predict results accurately enough would risk losing their contracts, he added.Robert Roscoe, chairman of the Law Society's criminal law committee, stresses that the Society has no objection in principle to block contracting for criminal work.

'We are happy to discuss new ways of providing a quality legal service using solicitors -- and how that's paid for.' However, the Legal Aid Board's secretive approach to the pilot scheme details currently getting underway is hardly reassuring, he adds.

The Board is refusing to say which firms have been approached to take part.In Sir Peter Middleton's Review of Civil Justice and Legal Aid -- published two days after the Lord Chancellor's speech -- Sir Peter also raises the spectre of 'conditional contracts', where firms would be paid a higher contract fee by the Board for successful cases.Legal aid practitioners appear resigned to the introduction of exclusive contracts at some stage.

However, Bill Montague, of Reading-based Dexter Montague and a former chairman of the Legal Aid Practitioners Group (LAPG) says that with only around 2,000 firms currently having legal aid franchises, the scheme is a long way from the stage where it could sensibly be used as a springboard for an exclusive system.

He adds that he would want to see conclusive evidence,--currently lacking,--that franchised firms necessarily give a superior service before the non-franchised were deprived of the chance to do the work.

Mr Montague is also unconvinced about how easy it will be to measure quality of advice rather than quality of systems as the Lord Chancellor hopes to do.

'The Legal Aid Board has been talking for several years about outcome measures, but keeps finding all sorts of problems coming up with workable measures,' he says.

A system which simply said: 'Case won; advice good.

Case lost; advice bad' would be far too simplistic, he adds.

Practitioners also say it is meaningless for Lord Irvine to talk about a lawyer 'having to nail his colours to the mast of a precise percentage prospect of success'.Kerry Underwood, of St Albans-based Underwoods, says cases broadly break down into three groups: those expected to win, those expected to lose or those which could go either way.

'I can't believe any case has, say, a 62% chance of success--and I've been doing this for 22 years.

It is nonsense.'Mike Napier, chair of the Law Society's civil litigation committee, says: 'Assessing cases is not as much of a science as they'd have you believe.' Firms doing conditional fee cases are already honing their skills and learning to assess risk more accurately, 'but it is a skill that can only be refined so far,' he adds.

Lord Irvine also wants to see the legal aid merits test tightened.

In principle, this is something the Law Society would support, as it has been calling for several years for change.

However, Russell Wallman, the Law Socie ty's director of policy, says the proposal that only cases with a 75% chance of success should be granted legal aid is too crude.Andrew Wilson, chairman of the LAPG, says the cases that will be left within the ambit of legal aid are the very ones where it is inappropriate to think in such terms.

A 75% threshold may be appropriate in some civil disputes, for example, suing a washing machine manufacturer (a case which would no longer be covered by legal aid)--but not where, for example, custody of children is at stake.

Cases which are covered by conditional fees will, however, have a lower threshold to reach.

The maximum success fee was set at 100% precisely to allow firms to take on cases with a 50% chance of success.

This means that a plaintiff would only need a 50:50 chance against, for example, a washing machine manufacturer to get a solicitor to take on a case; but a client would need a 75:25 chance to take on a local authority to stop their children going into care.

Mr Wilson says these types of cases are inherently unpredictable.

He tells of a recent case where, at the outset, both the local authority and the guardian said the children should be adopted.

At the end of the proceedings, all parties agreed that the two youngest should be at home with their mother.

In another, a case had gone to court for a contact order to be enforced against a woman who was refusing to let her husband have access to their children.

'In the event, the judge balked at the consequences of enforcing the order--but really that order should have been enforced,' he says.

'How do you start bringing percentages into these cases?'Roger Smith, director of the Legal Action Group, is alarmed at Sir Peter's suggestion,--which has been embraced by Lord Irvine,--that the merits test should also take into account the availability of local resources.

Such a move would be 'dangerous', he says.

He adds that there are still many unanswered questions about what the Lord Chancellor intends.

For example, would the 75% apply to criminal cases?--Presumably not.

And what about other defendants? Mr Smith says: 'The problem is that much of it is fuzzy.

There is more detail in Middleton but even he doesn't give enough.

No wonder we're all confused.'LORD IRVINE HAS EMBRACED LORD WOOLF'S ENDS, BUT LAWYERS ARE NOT SURE HE WILL PROVIDE THE MEANS, WRITES STEPHEN WARDFor two years the question about Lord Woolf's Access to Justice report has been whether a Conservative government might pick only cost-free, money-saving recommendations to implement.Lord Woolf said his plans had to be taken as a whole, and Lord Mackay eventually publicly accepted that logic.The Conservatives lost office before their commitment could be put to the test, and now the same questions are being asked about the new Labour Lord Chancellor.

Sir Peter Middleton, a former Treasury mandarin and Barclays Bank deputy chairman, who was asked by Lord Irvine to give a second opinion on Woolf, and the Lord Chancellor himself, have now accepted the same logic as Lord Mackay.

Lord Irvine told the Gazette in a statement that he was committed to implementing Woolf in full.Suzanne Burn, secretary to the Law Society's civil litigation committee, concluded after reading the Middleton report: 'Nothing essential seems to have been rejected.'In particular, the philosophy throughout the report is that of Lord Woolf -- that no frills justice widely available is preferable to a Rolls Royce system which almost nobody can afford to use.Sir Peter has apparently accepted several potentially unpalatable facets of Woolf.

First, the need to take the reforms as a whole; the report concludes that: '[The Woolf report] amounts to a coherent programme that can improve the efficiency and flexibility of the court system.

I have concluded that the reforms are capable of delivering worthwhile overall benefits.'Sir Peter also recognises the need for extra initial public spending before the savings come on stream, expenditure for which there is not yet a budget.

'I estimate the implementation costs over the next couple of years will be in the order of £8 to £10 million, the greater part of which is included in existing spending plans,' he writes.

Those figures have not been published before, and are not broken down.Sir Peter accepts the implication that some judges are not up to the more demanding job of managing cases, and refers to the thorny question of measuring judges performance.

'Not all judges will be suited to their new task,' he writes.

And he adds that the Lord Chancellor's Department, the lawyers and Court Service will have to 'consider how to monitor judges' performances'.

He accepts too Woolf's arguments for greater use of single experts to save time and money.Sir Peter even recognises that Woolf's ideal of more accessible justice, with cheaper unit costs, is likely to generate extra demand 'so there could be little or no reduction in aggregate costs'.But not everything suggested in Middleton necessarily has the backing of the Lord Chancellor, as Lord Irvine made clear by releasing the report only after he had made his speech in Cardiff.

The speech describes the Middleton report only as 'a strong framework against which [reform] proposals can be evaluated'.Lord Woolf himself was never dogmatic about the detail of each of his recommendations.

He said of his reports last year that his recommendations were not conclusions but: 'ways I think will be satisfactory and will radically improve the situation as it is now, and people should have the opportunity to point out to me how they can be improved and whether or not they are practical.'Lord Irvine in his speech went farther than Middleton in suggesting setting the fast track case value limit at £15,000 rather than £10,000, and extending the small claims limit from £3,000 to £5,000.

Neither are out of line with the spirit of Lord Woolf, who always accepted that any limit was arbitrary, although setting it higher would fuel the fears of less generous people than Lord Woolf, that the prime purpose was to economise.

However, the Lord Chancellor concedes the need for further consultation to make the changes workable.Suzanne Burn fears that without enough money invested in technology, judicial training and more judges, the case management of the 'slower-track' could be little more effective than it is today, despite rule-changes.Lord Irvine, asked by the Gazette about the extent of his commitment to fund Woolf, was careful in his choice of words.

He said: 'There will be implementation costs of the reforms in the short term, but in line with the government's commitment to remain within current expenditure plans for its first two years, the cost will be absorbed within existing budgets.

In the longer term the costs of the reforms are the costs of running the civil justice system differently and more efficiently.' He avoided saying the money would be found even if it could not come from savings in the short-term.In his speech in Cardiff, the Lord Chancellor committed himself to April 1999 for the introduction of the multi-track approach, six months later than Lord Mackay's plan, but s till a tight and firm deadline.

Many believe even the April 1999 deadline is unrealistic.

'You need all the rules, and procedures in place six months before that, so that people can prepare and be trained to work with them as soon as they come in,' Ms Burn says.Lord Irvine seems to have a different view from Lord Woolf of the proposed new fast-track process.

He said in his speech: 'The strength of the fast track will be the strong judicial control imposed on the progress of cases.

The responsibility to be put on the judges is great.

They must not fail because the public will believe that the judges have failed if the reforms fail.'Woolf's vision of the fast track was that it would handle cases where no management was needed.

The procedures would make sure various stages were completed on time, so all a judge had to do was make sure the deadlines were met.The cases needing the judicial management were those on the slow track, with judges using their new-found expertise to make sure it was a reasonably-paced track, intervening where necessary.Lord Irvine has embraced Lord Woolf's ends, but still has to convince lawyers that he will provide all the necessary means.

With overall budgets being frozen for two years, and subsequently costs of Woolf self-financing, much of the money may have to come from the millions he hopes to save on legal aidJOINING BATTLELord Irvine is facing a coalition of opposition to his proposed reforms.

As the campaign involving lawyers and action groups gets under way, we hear some rallying criesA CAMPAIGN HAS BEEN LAUNCHED TO FORCE LORD IRVINE TO THINK AGAIN.

THE LAW SOCIETY'S TEAM SETS OUT THE HIGHLIGHTSThe Lord Chancellor used the Solicitors' Conference last week to unveil the biggest shake-up of the legal aid system since it was first introduced by a reforming Labour government in 1949.Lord Irvine announced a radical reform package which will affect not just those doing legal aid work, but the whole profession.

In brief, his main proposals are to: extend conditional fees to all non-matrimonial claims; withdraw legal aid for all money and damages claims; tighten the legal aid merits test considerably; provide legal aid exclusively through fixed-price contracts; develop proposals for a community legal service; establish a separate fund for public interest cases; extend the small claims limit from £3,000 to £5,000, except for personal injury cases for which the limit will remain £1,000; implement most of the Woolf proposals, with fast track applying up to £15,000.The Law Society welcomes the extension of conditional fees.

But our concern must be that these reforms, particularly the withdrawal of legal aid from most civil cases, will seriously disadvantage the poor and those with complex cases.The Society has proposed its own scheme, a blending of conditional fees and legal aid, which we believe would reduce expenditure while extending access to justice.

The government, however, remains unconvinced.This government already has a deserved reputation for moving quickly.

The Lord Chancellor intends to extend conditional fees and withdraw legal aid in or around April 1998.

The implicationis that the Lord Chancellor's Department believes this is possible using secondary legislation.

The Society, in common with a range of advice and consumer bodies, strongly disagrees.

Together, we will strenuously resist any attempt to introduce such major dismantling of a vital social service without the introduction of a Bill allowing Parliament to debate the issue in full.Solicitors will be immediately a ware of the massive implications of such changes.

Even if insurance becomes widely available, how will those on low incomes, currently eligible for legal aid, be able to afford the premiums? This fundamental question has yet to be addressed by the Lord Chancellor's Department.

The brunt of these proposals would inevitably be borne by the poor.

The Downing Street 'spin' on objections raised by the legal profession is that of vested interests protecting their own.

That is not the case.

The Law Society's fundamental concern is one of access to justice.When facing a determined government with a large majority, it is inevitable that some change will take place.

So, in addition to strenuous lobbying in Parliament and campaigning in the media, the Society will be working with insurers to develop appropriate policies.

We will be attempting to establish the potential impact of new funding arrangements, particularly in relation to payments on account and disbursements.

We will also be talking to the main clearing banks about new arrangements for solicitors' firms.A community legal service, the extension of small claims limits, the fast track applying up to £15,000, fixed price contracts.

These are just some of the other issues raised in Lord Irvine's wide-ranging speech.

All will have a major impact on high street firms and legal aid practitioners.The Society welcomes the extension of the small claims limit for consumer claims, although we continue to argue that, owing to insufficient research, the jury is still out on the impact for more complex areas of law.

Housing in particular should be excluded from the small claims procedure.

Do-it-yourself justice may make a good soundbite, but it rarely leads to satisfactory outcomes in reality.Law Society President, Phillip Sycamore, has already had initial discussions with the Lord Chancellor and his senior officials about the proposals.

The Society will continue to make detailed representations to government.

We believe that one of the dangers of the government's proposals is that they would dismantle the network of solicitors' firms which provide a vital service in all parts of the country.The legal aid system was originally created by Labour as a vital pillar of the welfare state.

Legal aid practitioners and the Law Society have long known that it had grown into an imperfect tool for the delivery of justice for all.

But it has at least provided access to justice for the poor for nearly 50 years.

With one stroke, the government threatens to take that right away.

The Law Society will make every effort to persuade the government to think again, not on behalf of a self-interested profession, but on behalf of the right of every citizen to justice.Enquiries should be directed to Natalie Breeze, Law Society policy executive; tel, 0171 320 5963.LAW SOCIETY ACTION POINTSThe Law Society is taking the following immediate action:-- The President will be sending out a letter to all firms setting out the main issues for the profession and what the Society is proposing to do.-- Regular updates will appear in the Gazette and other newsletters and media.-- A joint letter with the consumers' organisations protesting against the withdrawal of legal aid in most civil cases will be sent to MPs early in the next session (the week commencing 27 October).

This letter will be press released and solicitors will receive a copy.-- A joint parliamentary information session with the consumer and advice sector organisations is being set up at the Houses of Parliament on 11 November at 4.00 pm to brief M Ps, peers and researchers about our concerns.-- Consultation meetings with the Lord Chancellor's Department have begun.-- We are briefing journalists and preparing articles for national media and legal journals.-- We will provide speakers for local law societies and other bodies.-- We will be examining the likely impact of new funding arrangements.-- We will be talking to the main banks about the impact on firms.LAW SOCIETY DEPUTY VICE PRESIDENT ROBERT SAYER URGES SOLICITORS TO LOBBY HARD IN ORDER TO MAKE THEIR VIEWS HEARDA government which considers itself to be compassionate and committed to bringing about a fairer society is the same one which intends to bring in legal aid reforms which look certain to result in the opposite.The excuse for doing so is that the cost of legal aid has spiralled out of control in recent years.

I query that.

One and a half billion equates to less than £30 per head of the population, about 4% of the National Health Service budget, the final cost of one Millennium Dome.

Put in that context, it is a low price to pay for what is still an excellent scheme that provides genuine access to justice for a huge number of ordinary citizens each year.It is claimed that conditional fees will provide greater access to justice for all.

'Let the litigant and the solicitor share the risk,' is how it has rather misleadingly been described.

In reality, if the case is lost, the lawyer carries the cost of the time invested and any disbursements.

Apparently, we will even be expected to pay the insurance premium for cover against opponents' costs should our clients lose.

In return, we are to be allowed to take from successful clients a 25% uplift.

To break even we will need to win at least four out of every five cases.The probable result will be that prudent solicitors will only take on cases they are confident they can win.

Clients with difficult cases -- medical negligence, police malpractice or 'cutting edge' litigation -- will find it extremely hard to find solicitors willing to act without the safety net of legal aid in place to cover part of the cost if they are unsuccessful.

The big battalions involved are too skilled at defending their interests.

No recourse to legal aid would mean that they would go unchallenged however badly they behaved.

Would the cervical cancer testing fiasco in Kent have come to light without legal aid?Another proposal to 'increase access to justice', according to the Lord Chancellor, is to raise the small claims court level to £5,000.

The government claims that the small claims court has successfully opened the courts to the private individual.

Where is the evidence to support that assertion? Such research that exists seems to confirm that by far the major users of the scheme are the articulate middle classes and small businesses.

The ill-educated, the poor -- the very people all governments pledge to help -- are so uncomfortable dealing with paperwork and authority that very few are willing to try and deal even with the relatively informal small claims court on their own.The present legal aid system is flawed but not as badly as the government and the public believe.

Far from solicitors profiteering at the public's expense, the reality is that legal aid hourly rates have barely kept pace with the retail price index during the last 15 years and have lagged dramatically behind the increase in the cost of running an office.Most legal aid cases involve fees of a few hundred pounds or less.

Most legal aid lawyers are underpaid and overworked.

Unfortunately, the vast major ity of legal aid cases is unexciting.

These cases do not hit the headlines.

Instead, the public reads about such cases as the Maxwells and they end up with a distorted perception of what legal aid is all about.

All lawyers are 'fat cats'.

They receive million-pound fees to help the rich or waste money fighting for non-smoking cells for prisoners.That distorted perception is what is enabling the government to justify dismantling a system which works despite its faults.

If we want to preserve any vestige of legal aid, it is important that the public is told the truth loudly, clearly and repeatedly until they understand that destroying the present system is not the only option.Lord Woolf's reforms were intended to make civil justice more economic.

Let us see whether they achieve this before making the courts more inaccessible.

Lord Irvine wants to toughen the merits test from the present 50:50 chance of success to a 75% probability.

But surely the problem is that the Legal Aid Board has persistently failed to operate the existing merits test properly.

If it had been forced to do so the majority of the highly-publicised 'abuses' would never have occurred.

Make the Legal Aid Board more accountable for its decisions.Instead of making solicitors fund client's legislation, extend legal aid to those currently excluded but on the condition that those who can afford to make a reasonable contribution to the cost do so, and all those who win money damages pay a percentage of them into the legal aid pool -- in other words, a conditional legal aid fund.

Let the litigant share the risk with society as a whole.Fighting a government with such a popular mandate will be difficult.

We need your help.

Many of you will know of existing cases where the proposed changes would have resulted in injustice.

Let the Law Society have the details.

The medical profession long ago learnt that a few real examples are worth a thousand theories.

Lobby your local MP and consumer groups.

Make a fuss.

If we let civil legal aid disappear without a fight, what will be the next target?LEGAL ACTION GROUP CHAIR ROGER SMITH POINTS OUT THE FLAWS IN SIR PETER MIDDLETON'S REPORT TO THE LORD CHANCELLORStudying Lord Irvine's conference speech and the accompanying report from Sir Peter Middleton makes you realise just how bold the Lord Chancellor intends to be.

Three reforms, all of them major, are to be implemented simultaneously.

It is not clear that he has been advised just how difficult this will be.It was Sir Peter's job to nip round the decks and check out the Lord Chancellor's ship of state before he sailed it out of port.

You can imagine that, in advance, Sir Peter must have seemed a safe choice.

A smooth mind and a degree of street wisdom were needed to survive as Mrs Thatcher's top Treasury mandarin.

Few could have seemed better qualified to reassure the Lord Chancellor that he could control his department's expenditure.Alas, Sir Peter combines his undoubted assets with two defects: a lack of questioning about 'market' reforms and an undue haste induced by a crowded diary.

The combination is somewhat disastrous.

Sir Peter comes from the generation of civil servants exhilarated by importing into public service their understanding of the private sector.

So, for example, out can go taxation of costs and in can come a version of a blind auction under which an unsuccessful litigant's costs are calculated as the lowest of pre-disclosed quotes from the lawyers on both sides.

What about practical problems, for example, in relation to assessing the costs of in-house la wyers, or costs rigging by the lawyers? Detail.

Sort it out later.Sir Peter's broad vision of the distant future is admittedly combined with pretty sharp near sight.

It would be better, for example, to let the fast-track procedure bed down first before getting bogged down in a row about the level of fixed costs.

Take contracting slowly and begin with green form and duty solicitors.This was not, however, a man to protest at the vision of Lord Mackay's legal aid universe.

Thus, all the fuss about conditional fees is obscuring a ministerial u-turn.

A year ago, Lord Irvine told the Bar conference that his predecessor's white paper was 'virtually a dead letter'.

Not according to Sir Peter.

He wants it in full: cash limits, amendment of merits test to allow rationing by reference to available resources and all.

The Lord Chancellor must eat his words.

Never mind how cogently he argued against such a package a year ago: 'Legal aid would cease to be a benefit to which a qualifying individual is entitled.

It would in practice become a discretionary benefit, available at bureaucratic disposal'.Haste proves to be Sir Peter's undoing.

He reviews conditional fees in four paragraphs, affirming that they can be substituted for legal aid in all money claims.

True to form, he is clever enough to display a little caution.

He recommends against wholesale abolition of legal aid for money claims and favours individual decision-making by case.

But, he is silent on the whole impact of the indemnity cost rule and the associated need for insurance.

You wonder if he understood, or was advised upon, the point.

The result is advice to the Lord Chancellor that is hardly adequate.Sir Peter gives the fast-track and the bulk of Lord Woolf's proposals the green light.

Again, he is weak on the crucial issue: the detailed modelling of their impact.

For example, will the fast-track, particularly if linked to the expansion of conditional fees, increase or decrease litigation and court costs? This is a major question; the courts run on a fixed budget, just as much as with legal aid.Nowhere in the Middleton report is there the warning that there is a potential nightmare scenario in which a myriad of contracts with legal aid providers, so wonderful in its theoretical model of competition and tough management, breaks down.

Judicial review booms as solicitors threatened with the termination of a contract, litigate to save their livelihood.

They are joined by individuals complaining that their cases have been unreasonably refused legal aid because apparent pressure on the budget required arbitrary decisions on merit.

Some of these even take advantage of the newly incorporated European Convention on Human Rights.

Meanwhile, the county court sinks further into the mire as there are not enough judges to provide early hearings on the fast track.

And other government departments and local authority departments are up in arms because conditional fees are encouraging claims for money damages where once litigants were happy with a declaration or an order for specific performance.The odd thing is that the Lord Chancellor does not have to expose himself in this way.

Everyone understands that he has to come in on budget and that unit costs have to be reduced.

Approached co-operatively, as by Lord Woolf whose effectiveness in this regard is praised by the Sir Peter, legal aid practitioners would probably suggest to him how he could achieve his objective.

A viable scheme is, after all, in their long term interest.

There is no need to rush into conditional fees.

The merits test f or legal aid may need changing.

The best option would not be the introduction of percentages and the potential for rationing but something like a requirement on solicitors to confirm, much along the lines of the Crown Prosecution Service, that at each appropriate stage there is a realistic chance of success.Lord Irvine will be Lord Chancellor for some time.

At the moment, he can whip the tabloids up with stories of 'fat cat' lawyers and talk in terms of opening up the courts to the middle classes.But the media are fickle.

Just wait until the first weeping mother laments to camera about how she can no longer get compensation for her brain-damaged baby or how she is unable to buy an electric wheelchair because her lawyer has taken a quarter of her damages.Let us hope that the process of consultation can raise a little of the natural caution that is said to be in the Lord Chancellor's temperament.