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I practiced in Toronto before I qualified in England and worked in criminal legal aid. The problem I always had in the UK was with the idea that legal aid was a lawyer's "right" and not that of the client. The client has a right to a lawyer of "his" choice and if he is unable to pay, then it is a political matter how his right to justice is secured, either through government assistance, private payment or pro bono work. Making the legal profession dependent on legal aid, because it paid well, and then making it impossible to practice privately as a lawyer providing criminal advice created this anomalous and painful situation. In Canada criminal lawyers began their careers providing services under legal aid but were allowed to then charge privately. Why is this a problem? Why is it necessary for the government to fund legal aid where many recipients of this assistance are plainly wealthier than the lawyer working for them due to their involvement in drug related offending? What has resulted is a squeeze on lawyers working in this part of the profession which puts them out of business when there is no possible reason for disallowing them to provide the same advice to clients for a fee. Several years now of making legal aid "free for all" has had the effect of making criminal law practitioners into some sort of quasi-public servants. Private practice is about being rewarded for good results. That no longer happens. Now we have the idea that good results in court don't matter at all. Tenders are based on how questions are answered. And, now, a mockery is made of that as well and we have people yanked off the street deciding who is best and who is not going to survive in business and in their chosen profession.

I left the practice after getting my contract and working for a few years under it. I went back into private practice and am now retired in the sunshine of Cyprus. I watch on with disbelief and genuine concern for a profession which has been, for over 20 years now, mismanaged and messed about with by governments which hypocritically use the term "competitive tendering" to falsely depict a scenario where the "best" survive. It's reassuring to see the truth about this farcical situation being exposed at last.