Week of action a 'major success'

Legal aid pay: government minister under fire as lawyers take fight to Parliament

The Legal Aid Practitioners Group (LAPG) has hailed the success of its 'week of action', despite the Lord Chancellor's Department's continued resistance to increased legal aid pay.LAPG chairman David Emmerson said the week had been 'a major success'.

He added: 'Most if not all members of Parliament have been made aware of our week of action and the reasons for it.'As part of the event, the LAPG held its annual general meeting at the House of Lords.

Lord Chancellor's Department minister David Lock told the solicitors there that it was difficult to justify funding increases for legal aid against a background of falling cases and higher expenditure.

But shadow attorney-general Edward Garnier told the meeting: 'The government has got itself into a complete mess.

The Lord Chancellor - while he correctly diagnosed that legal aid expenditure increased - has never explained why this happened.'Meanwhile, the two-partner London law firm which last year failed in its judicial review of the legal aid contracting scheme has attacked the Law Society's decision not to contribute to its 180,000 action.Mackintosh Duncan brought the action against the Legal Aid Board and Lord Chancellor.

The Society indemnified it against its opponents' costs and said it contributed 6,000 to counsel's fees - which the firm says has not materialised - and provided help from Society staff worth a disputed 30,000.The firm said the Society budgeted for a possible 200,000 pay out, but only had to pay for 40% of the board's 60,000 costs in the end.A Society spokeswoman said: 'The Law Society made it clear from the outset that it could not pay Mackintosh Duncan for the time spent by their own staff in pursuing the case.'

Jeremy Fleming and Anne Mizzi