More than four out of five legal aid firms expect to be handling less publicly funded work in five years' time, Gazette research has indicated, with almost all saying they are fed up with the system.

Out of 170 respondents to the Gazette's annual poll, 82% said they would not be doing as much legal aid work in 2010, up from 74% last year, while 98% complained that they are dissatisfied with the current legal aid system. Nine out of ten respondents (91%) are more pessimistic compared to this time last year.


Around 74% said they had turned clients away recently, mainly because they did not have a contract in the area or had run out of matter starts; 54% cited this. Others lacked the physical capacity (28%) or were 'cherry picking' cases (20%).


Some 16% of respondents said they had either dropped out of family work in the past 12 months or intended to do so in 2005. Other contract areas to be hit included crime (a 9% drop-out rate), and immigration (7%).


Most blamed low pay (36%), bureaucracy (24%) and audits (15%) as the reasons for their withdrawal. Uncertainty about the future was also a factor; legal aid solicitors are facing changes including fixed fees in civil work and competitive tendering in crime, which 87% said they were opposed to.


On methods of payment, four out of five wanted to retain the current system of hourly rates, with 16% favouring fixed fees and 8% wanting a graduated fee scheme.


The survey was backed by the Legal Aid Practitioners Group (LAPG), the Criminal Law Solicitors Association (CLSA) and free on-line information service CrimeLine, run by Tuckers partner Andrew Keogh.


LAPG director Richard Miller said the results showed that the Legal Services Commission (LSC) and government could bury their heads in the sand no longer. 'If they don't want to go down in history as the overseers of the disintegration of the legal aid system, they must act now,' he argued.


CLSA director Rodney Warren said: 'There is now writing on the wall that practitioners see a need to leave legal aid and that there is no longer any sense of optimism.'


Law Society chief executive Janet Paraskeva urged: 'The next government must take urgent action to enable legal aid to achieve its purpose of providing equal access to justice for all.'


The LSC said it appreciated the concerns but raised doubts that the majority of firms across the country were unhappy or pessimistic.


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