Mixed Problems


I was intrigued by Ian Kelsey's comment in the article on cuts to legal aid that giving accounts to the Legal Services Commission (LSC) would 'drive firms with a mixed practice out of legal aid work' (see [2007] Gazette, 4 January, 2).

I gave up my criminal law practice because I was unable to sustain my billings and was faced with the possibility of having a standard monthly payment of nil for several months.





My complaint to the LSC, as I closed my doors and watched my desk being carted off to the local amenities, was that other firms in the area had been 'supporting' their criminal law departments through lean times and were able to call on 'duty solicitors' within their practices who had not conducted a criminal case for years. These part-timers diverted work away from specialist sole practitioners whose only source of income was criminal law.



The point I made was that the assurance that all firms would prepare budgets and business plans which would be reviewed by the LSC was an illusory protection for those of us who found ourselves up against firms whose criminal departments ran at or near a loss but had other means to support themselves. And, surely, the LSC would pick up on the fact that many of the 'criminal' law solicitors in my area had not been seen in court since the Criminal Defence Service was set up.



The response from the LSC at the time was there was nothing it could do about the situation.



I have never had any objection to the government making cuts to the legal aid budget. I did not come into the profession with an ingrained notion that I was owed a living, which seems to be the general theme of those criticising reform. What I objected to was being forced to work to a certain standard for such low pay and having no protection against firms such as these 'mixed practices' taking the majority of the work for themselves and freelance agents.



If the government wants to have a true free market within the legal aid system, it should abandon the contract system and offer legal aid, as a right, to members of the public to instruct a solicitor of their own choice, rather than those left after the current process of decimation being practised by the LSC.



I have yet to hear anyone in the profession making a reasoned argument that it is actually the right of the individual to instruct a solicitor of his own choice using his entitlement (however tested) to public funding and it is also the right of all of us to pursue our livelihoods without unnecessary interference from government. It is not a complicated matter to plead a client guilty to an assault

matter in the local magistrates' court and certainly not something which requires attaining a quality standard and all that goes with maintaining

a contract.



Mixed firms went along with it because they felt that the smaller firms would fail and

they would be left to clean up.



It is this sort of cynicism within the profession which undermines the efforts of those who are genuinely committed to practising criminal law and to public funding of criminal justice.



It is no wonder there is little support from the public for the position of the profession in the current debate.



David Harris, Golds, Glasgow