Not Listening


Legal aid minister Vera Baird continues to fail to listen to 'experts' and to the profession (see [2007] Gazette, 1 March, 12).



Solicitors have little, if any, control of the time spent in police stations or of time spent in the Crown Court. In both situations, solicitors are required to give advice and to help with the smooth running of the operation. In the case of serious offences, police officers like having a solicitor present at interview to legitimise the process. Judges like solicitors and/or clerks at court to help organise witnesses and to gather information from witnesses for the court and for counsel.



The state should compensate solicitors for the real cost of inefficiencies in police stations and in the Crown Court.



Solicitors have not welcomed peer review. What solicitors have said is that peer review is better than an audit by the Legal Services Commission. As Professor Ed Cape recently informed the constitutional affairs select committee in its investigation of legal aid, there is no independent academic evidence that peer review is of any worth as a qualitative assurance tool.



I would prefer to see accreditation and peer review replaced with an established qualitative assurance tool - training and written assessment as part of a robust, enhanced continuing professional development programme for all solicitors, barristers and legal executives, whether paid privately or from public funds.



Until ministers and the commission talk to solicitors about what is good and bad with legal aid and the justice systems, 'reform' will continue to carry the stench of bovine waste product and it will be resisted. It will be resisted because it does not make sense.



Michael Robinson, Emmersons Solicitors, Sunderland