No easy answers

Last month I painted a rather grim picture of the legal profession 15 years hence. Colleagues described it as science fiction or science fantasy, but there is little doubt that the legal sector will change.

There are those who are keen on technological solutions. They talk of 'stream-lined firms' and of embracing the internet. I am a partner in quite a small firm and we have been embracing the internet for ten years and operating email for much longer.

I can fondly remember the day when I was told gleefully by a computer salesman that having computers meant far fewer staff, no secretarial expenditure and I would be able to manage my accounts without employing personnel.

Sadly, none of that has come to pass and, while of course computerisation, the internet, email and all the other technological whizz-bangs have made aspects of the job much easier, it sometimes feels like we are still in the dark ages. Most courts do not publish their lists online. Many court processes cannot be done online. My criminal colleagues say they cannot take mobile phones and laptops into prisons. Many of the judiciary are a little behind the times in terms of producing orders online and distributing judgments electronically.

Others advocate the joys of outsourcing. I heard that one of the West End giants was entering into a deal worth £583m over ten years; i.e. £58m a year to outsource its 'middle office' functions including, among others, accounting and finance, human resources, marketing and communications, training, research and IT.

It occurred to me that if I outsourced those functions from my office I would be out of a job as I do most of them.

Around 75 per cent of the profession consists of firms with less than four partners. I suspect there will be a lot of other partners out there who have similar experience.

Decision time

This brings us back to what are the changes which we are likely to be facing. Most commentators say that in legal aid there won't be any more money. That may be the case but it is a sad condemnation of our democracy that choices are now being made which mean that we would rather spend £90bn on Trident than increase the public funding budget by, say, £500m a year to help battered wives, homeless people and vulnerable mentally ill clients. Ultimately it is about choice. Politicians have to decide where the money goes. Unfortunately, the legal aid budget has become highly politicised.

Punters seem to enjoy stories about greedy solicitors and their fat cat practices. Very few mainstream newspapers regard it as newsworthy to talk about the good solicitors actually achieve. Accordingly, when governments make spending decisions and decide to siphon off another £90bn to Trident, and probably reduce the legal aid budget rather than increase it, they will likely feel comfortable in those choices in the knowledge that the public continues to hate the legal profession.

So, does change always have to be for the better? I'm not so sure. Outsourcing can be an absolute disaster. Technological solutions are not always what the customer wants. While one commentator recently mentioned that 75 per cent of UK homes have a computer he was probably missing the point that most legal aid practices deal with the 25 per cent that do not. The huge number of emails I get during the day invariably come from private clients '“ it is rare that I get emails from legally aided clients who cannot afford a computer or a broadband connection, and may not be able to speak or write English.

Realistic solutions?

Until recently we had a legal aid system which was rightly regarded as the best of its kind in the world. Now we rather nervously say what poor value it provides and how it does not compare favourably with other jurisdictions. But it is something we should be proud of. We should not be dismantling it, we should be expanding it.

When the legal aid system trickles down the drain, somebody will have to sort the problems out. Domestic violence will not go away. There will always be homeless people and vulnerable adults requiring help.

Will we have sorted everything out by outsourcing? I suspect not. Outsourcing costs a lot of money and while big hitters in the West End might be able to afford it small legal aid practices certainly cannot.

Technological solutions over the internet? Not to the liking of most legal aid clients who would not be able to access them.

So, where do we go from here? I suspect the way forward is to develop the political will to understand that our legal aid system is something to be proud of and to be developed, not slung on the scrapheap.

Clients often remark how nice the office is with a dog around. They bring their children in to give him a cuddle. When I explained to one client that in the future she may only have a consultation on a computer with a picture of Cosmo as an icon she recoiled in horror as she was just one of those people who could not work a computer and needed to explain her problems across the desk.

This is a typically English problem. We have something rather precious and wonderful and then we knock it to pieces. Legal aid was great and is now sadly slipping away. Nevertheless, we live in times of change. Perhaps the coalition government will have different ideas on a problem that will not go away and for which there are no easy answers.

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