Legal Aid

Desmond Browne QC pays tribute to the people involved in drafting the Bar’s consultation paper responses 

A cross-party group of MPs has condemned the Legal Services Commission (“LSC”) proposals to cut legal aid funds for family law cases as “flawed, weak and inflexible”. 

The Bar Council has published a booklet,  Legal Aid: 60 Years of Public Service by Barristers, marking the 60th anniversary of the Legal Aid and Advice Act 1949.  The booklet describes how barristers funded by legal aid have acted for some of society’s most vulnerable people over the past 60 years. 

PARLIAMENT played host to a high-level meeting on the impact of the Legal Services Commission’s proposed cuts to family legal aid on vulnerable children on 12 May 2009. 

Chaired by Baroness Butler-Sloss and Baroness Walmsley, the meeting gathered together Parliamentarians, family barristers and children’s charities, and examined the way in which some of the most vulnerable children and families will be put at risk by the cuts to the legal aid budget for family cases, which are due to be implemented later this year. 

MPs have launched an all-party Parliamentary group on legal aid, to promote understanding of the role of publicly funded legal services. 

THE potential human cost of denying vulnerable families and children access to expert legal support in care and related cases was revealed in a dossier of case studies, showing the difficulties which are already being encountered by family barristers as they seek to represent their clients to the best of their abilities. 

The Family Law Bar Association (FLBA) submitted the case studies to the Ministry of Justice, which is overseeing deep cuts to funding support for vulnerable families and children as part of a major attack of the legal aid system. The FLBA is campaigning for no further cuts in a system which is already creaking under the strain of societal change and which faces greater demands for intervention to protect children at risk in the wake of Baby P. 

DESMOND Browne QC, Chairman of the Bar Council, speaking at the 7th Biennial Minority Lawyers’ Conference, has highlighted the Bar’s ongoing commitment to increasing diversity and access to the profession. 

Approximately 50% of those entering the profession are currently women, with around 21% from BME backgrounds, up from 16% in 2004. This record reflects the work of the Bar Council to increase access to the profession, for example via mentoring schemes which allow schoolchildren an insight into life at the Bar. The Conference followed the first research paper from the Cabinet Office Panel on Fair Access to the Professions, published on the 14th April, which suggested mentoring as a key mechanism for ensuring that able candidates from less well-off backgrounds can aspire to join the professions. 

A self-funding scheme to provide assistance to those deemed eligible for help in mounting civil legal claims could help to ensure access to justice for those currently ineligible for legal aid but without the means to enforce their rights. 

The idea comes in a new report commissioned by the Bar Council's Policy Advisory Group 'think tank'. The Contingent Legal Aid Fund (CLAF) has been developed as a concept by a group led by former Bar Chairman Guy Mansfield QC. 

A Bar Council “think tank” has proposed a self-funding scheme to help those ineligible for civil legal aid but without the means to mount a legal claim. 

Family barristers are stepping up their campaign against proposals to pay fixed fees for advocacy in family legal aid cases from 2010.