By Rachell Rothwell


The Law Society scored a coup for civil legal aid practitioners last week by securing a package worth £55 million from the government in return for dropping its legal action against the Legal Services Commission (LSC).



The deal sees the LSC relax its stance on recouping payments on account and introduce fee increases for civil work. It has also agreed not to bring in competitive tendering for civil or family work before 2013.



The settlement also incorporates new systems of collaborative working which the Society hailed as a watershed in its hitherto troubled relationship with the LSC (see news analysis).



However, the civil deal came as a growing crisis emerged in criminal legal aid. Practitioners warned that a 'significant number' of firms would be refusing to sign up to this year's new contract for criminal defence work, while information obtained under the Freedom of Information Act (FoI) and seen exclusively by the Gazette revealed that the number of new legal aid lawyers is 'dangerously low'.



Figures released by the LSC following an FoI request by a Law Society Council member showed that, for every four criminal legal aid firms, only one new duty solicitor was recruited last year. There were just 552 newly accredited duty solicitors in 2007, for 2,200 firms.



Law Society President Andrew Holroyd said criminal legal aid lawyers were 'at risk of extinction', adding that 'numbers of new legal aid lawyers are dangerously low'.



LSC Criminal Defence Service Director Derek Hill said there was no cause for concern as the number of duty solicitors on rotas and panels was being refreshed at a rate of around 11% of the total pool.



Meanwhile, Rodney Warren, director of the Criminal Law Solicitors Association, said he had received a large number of reports that firms will not be applying for a new contract for criminal defence work this year. He said many of these were large and well-established firms 'which we thought would never leave the marketplace'.



Warren said firms were pulling out of the field because the LSC has refused to commit to increasing its fee rates in line with inflation. The process for applying for a new contract began this week.



He said: 'We think there will be a lot of individual practitioners whose firms will decide not to go ahead with the contract. These individuals will have to set up on their own, from home - and then the LSC will claim to have got more contract holders. But how is that helping the move towards stability and growth in the marketplace?'



Warren added: 'The [government] is oblivious of the need to maintain the real terms value of these fees. Flat cash work will drive the trade into the buffers. It's a Mugabe approach to running a business.'



Ian Kelcey, chairman of the Law Society's criminal law committee, confirmed that many firms were not planning to sign the contract. He said: 'Firms are looking for an exit route out of crime... A lot are thinking of not signing, particularly those that practise in rural areas where they have been doing crime as a service to the community.'



Law Society legal aid manager Richard Miller added that it was 'no surprise' if firms were saying 'enough is enough'. He said: 'Firms having to absorb inflation year on year is a major problem.'



However, lawyers welcomed the LSC's decision not to require duty solicitors to undergo a process of re-accreditation in the new contract. Joy Merriam, chairwoman of the CLSA which had pushed for re-accreditation plans to be scrapped, said: 'The dwindling proportion of the profession qualified to undertake this fundamentally important work has already fallen below a mere 4%. There was always a considerable risk that re-accreditation would have driven out many experienced solicitors.'



The new criminal contract has also scrapped automatic financial penalties for claims that are submitted more than three months late, and has removed the requirement for solicitors to record travel costs for fixed-fee matters. It also limits the LSC's powers to amend the contract and introduces a new method for reconciling standard monthly payments which is designed to give more stability to providers.



An LSC spokesman said: 'The contract which is being offered for signature is set to last for 18 months. The rates will be fixed for that period. We believe those rates are sufficient to attract providers to deliver the service.'



Meanwhile, the deal struck between the Law Society and LSC has delayed the introduction of best-value tendering for criminal work by six months, until July 2009. Kelcey said this was like 'getting a six-month extension on death row'.