RECRUITMENT: money to cover student fees and salaries

The Legal Services Commission (LSC) this week announced a new round of funding to the tune of 3 million over the next three years for the training of 100 legal aid solicitors.

The grants will cover successful applicants' legal practice course fees, which can cost more than 8,000, plus three-quarters of the minimum salary laid down by the Law Society throughout the two-year training contract and the cost of the professional skills course, amounting to some 20,000.

The grants will become available next month.

Firms that generate a substantial amount of their income from legal aid will be able to apply for the training course grants, although 15% of the money will be targeted at trainees in the not-for-profit sector.

LSC chief executive Clare Dodgson said the grants would help ensure sufficient numbers of solicitors to represent vulnerable people and draw in new entrants who ultimately could have been lost to the legal aid world.

But a Law Society spokesman warned that the grants would not head off a crisis unless pay was increased.

'This additional funding is welcome, but it hardly scratches the surface of the widespread and growing problem of solicitors having to abandon the legal aid system because they are no longer able to make a living from this kind of work,' he argued.

Legal Aid Practitioners Group director Richard Miller welcomed the continuance of the scheme as massive debts were deterring students from legal aid: 'It demonstrates a commitment to the future of the legal aid scheme that we hope will be reflected in decisions on other funding issues.'

Paula Rohan