In the news:
Cuts, cuts, cuts!!! Does it not seem that all we hear about is cuts? Yet we never appear to hear when politicians should be paying back their increased expenses over the years. Whilst I'm not paying tax I'd like to know where the tax is going. It won't be coming to me in the future if I became a legal aid solicitor. Last week Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke declared his position on the legal aid scheme which gives thousands of people access to justice every year. Now there will be many changes and to many people these appear to be negative changes. Mr Clarke intends to cut the legal aid bill be 350m a year by 2015 and as a result there will be 500,000 fewer cases a year. He intend to this by changing the scheme to a means tested contribution to legal aid. At present anyone with assets worth less than 8,000 qualifies for legal aid with those worth up to 3000 paying nothing and others expected to make a contribution. Under the new system anyone with assets over 1000 will ha ve to pay at least 100 towards their legal costs. Fees paid in civil and family cases will also be cut by 10% accross the board with similar cuts in experts' fees.
What will it affect?
The legal aid cuts will affect many areas:
Family Funding for divorce cases will be stopped amounting to a reduction of 246,000 cases in private law cases, predicted to save 178m a year. The exception to these cases will be those divorces that involve domestic violence, forced marriages, child abduction or those that result in children being taken into care. This means more divorcing couples will have to mediate represent themselves in court, or find some other way to fund resolve their differences.
Clinical negligenceFunding for a wide range of disputes including clinical negligence is also to be axed. This will remove 6,100 cases a year, an annual saving of 17m. This will include cases where a client has incurred loss because of medical treatment or an action is brought be family of someone who has died as a result of negligence. Those involved in a raft of clinical negligence clinical negligence claims will also have to find alternative means of funding. The government needs to see a rise in no win no fee cases, yet it wants lawyers to forego large success fees in these cases. That could prevent some lawyers from taking on such cases at all.
Welfare and DebtThe reduction of 123,000 cases is predicted to save 22m a year which will involve withdrawing legal aid from all welfare benefit cases in which initial legal help is given to those taking appeals to the social security tribunal which account for 113,000 cases.
EmploymentAll legal help and representation is to be removed for appeals to the employment appeal tribunal including unfair dismissal, redundancy, discrimination, strike action, and wages issues such as equal pay Legal aid is not an issue that garners much public or political support. The legal aid system was set up by Labour's postwar government as a pillar of the welfare state, guaranteeing access to justice as other postwar reforms ensured access to healthcare or education.
Immigration Around 43,700 fewer cases predicted to save 18m a year. These mainly cover appeals to against visa refusals, appeals to stay in the country but all asylum cases will be excluded as will appeals by those in immigration detention against their continued detention. However, legal aid will be withdrawn from those appealing against decisions to take away continued welfare support for asylum seekers.
HousingFunding will be available only to housing matters when someone's home is at immediate risk.
Criminal The affect to cutting criminal legal aid will mean legal aid solicitors will no longer be paid to visit clients at police stations.
Why the change?
Part of the reason why change is needed is that the bill for legal aid to the state costs so much that politicians have found it indefensible. Both Labour and Tory politicians point out that the civil and family legal aid has risen from 719m to 914m over the past nine years. Thus meaning the total bill for civil and criminal legal aid now amounts to 2.1bn a year helping 2m people each year. Clarke claims that the cost per head in England and Wales has reached 38 a head compared to 9 in Australia and 8 in Ireland - also common law jurisdictions. There will be 547,000 fewer people each year getting help to resolve legal cases that matter to them and who can't afford their own legal advice. Many of them will be about family matters but they will also involve redundancy, housing, and debt which are all bound to get worse in the public sector squeeze.
People's opinions
It does appear that this is a controversial reform. I am yet to find a person, other than Mr Clarke himself who is for the change. As far as I can see this reform has received a lot of negative media coverage and rightly so.
Mr Clarke's views: There 'was a compelling case for going back to first principles in reforming legal aid. It cannot be right that the tax payer is footing the bill for unnecessary court cases which would never have even reached the courtroom door, were it not for the fact that somebody else was paying. I propose to introduce a more targeted civil and family scheme which will discourage people from resorting to lawyers whenever they face a problems, and instead encourage them to consider more suitable methods of dispute resolution.
Law Society Chief executive Des Hudson warns the government against 'playing fast and loose with the basic principle that the courts and justice system are available irrespective of your wealth.'Shadow Treasury minister Chris Leslie said organisations such as the Citizens Advice Bureau were in 'jeopardy' of closing because they faced cut in their legal aid funding.' The new rules were 'skewed' towards hitting the very poorest in society' he added.'
'Stuart Mathews Co director of legal aid firm 'There is a risk of abuse at the police station, and without people at the police station, that power goes unchecked. When its abused, you end up with miscarriages of justice.'
Carol Storer' director of Legal aid practitioners group said 'You can't keep making cuts and expect practitioners to keep working longer and longer hours to deliver a quality service when their fees don't cover their overheads.'
My opinion
My opinion really varies on this issue. I have worked for three years during my summer holidays in Sherborne Citizens Advice Bureau helping a variety of people in these areas who are particularly vulnerable and they do need help from legal advisors to represent themselves otherwise they do not stand the chance. As my friend who is doing a placement with South Law center says when you have big organization battling, such as the banks, in court it all easy for them to get their legal representation but as easy for the individuals that come into their center. The legal aid cuts just make it harder for them. I also think some clients might not have a chance of succeeding were it that they represented themselves in court which is why they need a legal advisor. If one of the client is overly confident in a court and the other one isn't it may cause an unfair advantage if they can't have access to a legal advisor because they can't afford it.In contrast I do share Mr Clarke's vie w because when I did a week work experience in family law firm. Whilst I enjoyed what I did, I did feel there were some unnecessary things that the solicitors did. In some ways it appeared that solicitor were messengers between clients. It tended to be that one solicitor would ask their client what they wanted then report back to the opponent solicitor in order to share what their clients wanted. Also I noticed cases involving children solicitors were sending letters to other solicitors arranging what days children could get picked up. I just wandered whether that's something the tax payer shouldn't be paying for and the parties themselves should either sort out the arrangements themselves or pay for them.
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