Report comment

Thanks for that, Arthur, and very interesting. I concur with all that you say about the merits of the Green Form Scheme. I recall it coming in in about 1974/75 and I used it a lot. It did, as you say, give immediate, cheap and easily administered access to the law for those who might otherwise not get it. And it enabled us to be paid something whilst we got a full Certificate application under way.

But it was destroyed, yes destroyed, by a few practitioners who abused it. They went around market towns on market days with mobile market day offices getting all and sundry to sign up for all sorts or weird and wonderful issues. That's why it failed. It was abuse, pure and simple.

You are quite correct in saying, though, that we all know dodgy solicitors and should really name and shame them. But they'd probably fill out a Green Form and plead not guilty and you know all that would flow from that...