New legal aid contracts: welcome to the sausage factory?

Legal aid lawyers warned today that the new Standard Terms for the new Unified Contracts released by the Legal Services Commission on Monday (26 February) will drive more lawyers out of publicly funded work.

'The Legal Services Commission's decision to grant itself the right to amend and terminate contracts at little notice causes such uncertainty for law firms that few will be prepared to build a business development plan based on legal aid work,' said Richard Miller, chairman of the Legal Aid Practitioner Group.

And this is only one of the issues which Miller says will accelerate the haemorrhage of lawyers out of publicly funded to private work, increasing the risk that those most vulnerable in society will be left with no access to legal advice.

The search for alternative client bases has already started in many firms, with family lawyers being able, in theory, to simply switch from a legal aid client base to privately funded work. In practice, however, clients who are unable to afford legal advice may turn to other low cost providers, such as law centres or citizens advice bureaux. In addition, a glut of lawyers entering the private client market at the same time will increase competition further, so instead of survival, firms will face further threats.

Similarly, housing lawyers advising tenants could envisage changing side. 'There are plenty of landlords looking for lawyers,' Miller continues, 'but it is a very painful decision to make for legal aid lawyer, for whom the choice to enter the profession was vocational.'

For those who intend to stay in practice, the reality, according to Miller, is that 'if firms want to carry on, they have no choice but to agree to the new contracts. We tried to convince the LSC to make amendments, but they refused to take our concerns on board.'

Already Miller says he has received comments from other legal aid lawyers who say they 'cannot see a way of making it work'. Those doing welfare work are likely to be most affected. 'In London, for instance, it just cannot work', Miller continues. 'The only way forward is to cherry-pick and cut client service to the bone. Gone will be the idea of meeting a client when they need it and holding their hand through the process. It will just become a sausage factory where client care is reduced to the bare minimum acceptable.'

Miller is also doubtful that the arrangements to incorporate payment for travel time and waiting into magistrates court fees will make any difference in practice. In fact, it could even introduce further unfairness. 'Take Bath and Bristol, which are both large urbanised areas. Only Bath is classed as a 'rural' area for legal aid purposes. Practitioners in both place appear in Frome, which is halfway between the two, but only those coming from Bath can claim travel and waiting time, not those coming from Bristol who are regarded as practising in an 'urban' area where there is no allowance.'

Miller's greatest regret in this respect is that no solution has been proposed to tackle the root of the problem with travel and waiting time. He has suggested a 'polluter-pays' approach, so that the party responsible for the delays is responsible for the associated costs, but so far, no-one has taken him up on it.