Next legal aid protest day is March 7
MoJ cuts announcement is 'imminent', criminal lawyers say
The next legal aid protest will take place across a whole day, and the date chosen is March 7, it has emerged.
Bill Waddington, chairman of the CLSA, said solicitors would be invited to a "national training day". Nigel Lithman QC, chairman of the CBA, said barristers "will no longer be available/will not work during the day of March 7".
Waddington (pictured) said he was told that an announcement by the government on its legal aid cuts was "imminent" at a meeting with justice secretary Chris Grayling yesterday.
Following that, he said that a meeting of the CLSA, LCCSA and CBA agreed to hold a one-day protest on 7 March.
"We were told nothing more specific than that," Waddington said. "The plans will include two-tier contracts for duty solicitor work. There will be cuts to fees but we know nothing about the amount, the timing and whether they will take place in one or two tranches.
"We were told that all will be revealed in this imminently published response."
Lithman said on the CBA's website this morning that a separate meeting between the Lord Chancellor and Nick Lavender QC, chairman of the Bar Council, suggested that the MoJ was "not for turning".
He said that not only would barristers refuse to work on 7 March, but from that date they would no longer cover cases for each other, a practice known as accepting 'returns'.
"Their legal aid 'slash and burn' policy continues with no review of the 30 per cent cuts already introduced for VHCC cases, just the promise of further cuts to come," Lithman said.
"No other section of society and no other publicly funded profession face such an onslaught or have been subjected to a series of fee cuts already imposed year on year, the last of which we say will continue to deliver savings not yet properly calculated into the ministry's budget.
"We must be unique amongst professions in not having sought an increase in our fees but are content for the time being to accept a pay freeze. The independent Criminal Bar cannot survive such cuts and the fabric of the criminal justice system will be ripped apart as a result."
Lithman added: "The purpose of any action must be to show the government the depth of the resolve among the legal profession to speak as one voice. We must show them the value of what they are so willing to destroy."