Legal aid is rare but not extinct

As widely reported, as part of the government's efforts to cut the Legal Aid bill by £270m, April 2013 saw the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act (LASPO) come into force. This brought with it a dramatic change in relation to the rules surrounding who would and wouldn't qualify for legal aid in family and matrimonial cases.

The new funding structure means, in essence, that legal aid is generally no longer available for divorce cases, disputes over assets following the breakdown of relationships or private law Children Act proceedings, leaving many in need of help to cover legal fees with nowhere to turn. This means that anyone seeking a residence or contact order for their children or grandchildren, a divorce or to resolve financial affairs, is probably not eligible for legal aid.

The new, more stringent requirements and changes have gone too far. It is extremely short sighted to deny a large proportion of society the right to access legal advice and is, no doubt, simply building up problems for the future.

We have probably all had the odd case where instructions from a legally aided client may have been a little different had they been putting their hand into their own pocket, but the majority of people assisted historically were entitled to public funding for a good reason.

It has been over eleven months since the major changes came into play but there appears to still be a number of grey areas for solicitors and clients to navigate through to ascertain what clients are and are not entitled to.

Clients, on the whole, appear to be unclear on the implications of the changes to legal aid and this should be a significant concern for the wider legal sector. The changes are not clear cut and the perceived 'blanket approach' to legal aid no longer being available across the board is, of course, far removed from the actual reality - there is still financial assistance available for some.

The work through my firm means that I work closely with a number of organisations spanning the North East region - from community groups and children's centres, to domestic violence organisations, refuges and Citizens Advice Bureaus. What has become increasingly obvious over the past eleven months is that people are unaware of the implications of these changes, which is very concerning.

The implications are that typically whole sections of society are being denied access to justice and are being left to try and resolve matters themselves. Worryingly in some cases, we have seen people representing themselves in court, trying to negotiate their way around the often complex family law system, with little or no legal knowledge, as they believe that there are no other options available to them.

The public must not assume that legal aid is no longer available, as it might be through mediation or other dispute resolution; these two avenues could open the door to legal aid.

Simon Dakers is a partner at Gordon Brown Law Firm

gblf.co.uk