Out of Form

I am now faced with the third completely new set of legal aid forms in less than a year.

I have in front of me versions of claim 10 dated September 1999, April 2000 and July 2000.

I eagerly anticipate a fresh print of claim 10 being issued as soon as it is realised that the present form no longer asks for the National Insurance Number.

I quite accept that these forms are supplied free of charge in a master pack and that they can be downloaded from the Internet.

Like many solicitors, however, my main source of legal aid forms is through commercial software, which not only assists with the completion of the forms themselves, it also does the financial calculations.

These programmes are not free of charge and I am now faced with asking my firm to replace them for what appears to be the fourth time in less than a year.

I would not mind so much if there were any obvious difference, apart from the logo, between the new forms and those that they replace.

But legal aid rates are not exactly generous and to be forced by the Community Legal Service to spend an extra 1,000 every year, or so, on new computer programmes is not exactly appreciated.

Can we now assume that when the CLS has corrected the errors in the present batch of forms, we can expect them to remain in use for a sufficiently long period, at least to recoup the investment that the profession has made in computerisation?

Paul Tritschler, Lemon Line & Felton, Salisbury