Legal Aid

Just what does the Coalition Government stand for? Charles Hale and Toby Craig investigate…

As we approach the first anniversary of the Coalition Government and the all-important alternative vote referendum, the past month has given us some of the clearest indications yet of what the unexpected alliance is all about. 

Judiciary

District Judge Paul Mildred has warned the legal aid cuts will heap pressure on the courts, in his first public comments since becoming President of the Association of District Judges.

Response to Government announcement on Jackson; the Norgrove Review; criminal legal aid update; inaugural Bar Debate; and a clutch of new Silks.

We now have the Government response to the consultation on implementation of the Jackson reforms. It will have caused dismay to many. In large measure it intends to adopt all of the proposals. 

access to justice

The Master of the Rolls has used the annual Bentham lecture to stand up for legal aid, oppose the myth of the compensation culture and put right the “insidious idea” that litigation is actually a bad thing.

legal aid

The Judges Council has warned that proposals to cut legal aid will cost as much as they save — echoing Bar Council research that reached the same conclusion.
According to the Judges Council, which is chaired by the Lord Chief Justice and represents all levels of the judiciary, there will be a “huge” rise in numbers of litigants in person if Ministry of Justice (MoJ) plans to trim £350 million from the legal aid budget go ahead.

William Byfield, Gutteridge Chambers 

This is what we’ve come to ... no longer just having our fees cut to the bone, hitting the good and the bad alike, but being second-guessed by incompetents.

14 February 2011: 

“I am but mad north-north-west: when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw.”  
– Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (Act II, Sc II), William Shakespeare 

Legal aid cuts

The Bar Council has accused the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) of getting its sums wrong over its “crude and brutal” legal aid cuts.

Synoposis of Bar’s response to MoJ’s consultation papers on legal aid and Jackson. The Bar has concluded that most of the legal aid proposals will cause irreparable damage

Contributor
Peter Lodder QC

The Bar Council responses to the Legal Aid Consultation Green Paper and the Jackson implementation proposals have gone to the Ministry of Justice. I am very grateful to Stephen Cobb QC and his team for the enormous efforts they have made. They have produced analyses of the two sets of proposals that are well reasoned, balanced and very much in the public interest. 

Roger Smith OBE spells out what the consultation means for practitioners 

The legal aid cuts advanced by the consultation paper Proposals for the Reform of Legal Aid in England and Wales are so deep that they will force major change to the very structure of both branches of the legal profession. 

Reaction to the recent Government consultations 

This is my first column as your Chairman, written at the beginning of December but because of printing timetables it will not be published until January. This is an odd time. I have delivered my inaugural address setting out my hopes and aspirations for 2011, and I have been interviewed by The Times and other media.