Negotiations: LSC rejects claims that deal is oppressive


A revised version of the unified legal aid contract remains 'deeply flawed', the Law Society warned this week.



The alarm was sounded as a 'near final' draft of new contract terms that are scheduled to take effect for civil legal aid in April 2007 was set to be published by the Legal Services Commission (LSC).



Chancery Lane said the latest version of the contract included marginal changes, but 'none of the substantive changes necessary to address the fundamental points' it had raised with the LSC previously.



London firm Bircham Dyson Bell, instructed by Chancery Lane, said an earlier version was 'flawed for lack of certainty', and contained a 'number of inequitable conditions' and provisions that could be unenforceable.



In a statement on its website, the Society said: 'It is vitally important that this key contract offers practitioners a high degree of certainty and is fair in all its terms, because it's through this document that the LSC plans to introduce unprecedented changes to legal aid delivery.'



The LSC rejected the assertion that the contract was oppressive and said it had sought legal advice from Eversheds, which had confirmed the contract was reasonable given its position as a public body.



A spokesman for the LSC said: 'Many of the terms are identical or very similar to terms with which practitioners are familiar and which have not caused any real difficulties in practice over the last seven years.'



Talks between the LSC and the Law Society and other representative bodies will continue, before the final version of the contract is published later this month.



The Law Society said it will publish its views on the final document, and advised that practitioners might want to consider deferring action with regard to the contract until they have considered those views.



Catherine Baksi