Legal Aid

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

THE Bar Council has voiced its concerns over government plans to cut legal aid for vulnerable children and families, saying that cuts of between 20% and 30% being proposed by the Ministry of Justice would risk miscarriages of family justice. 

The warning, supported by a statement from the leading children’s charity the NSPCC, follows a recent report from the Family Law Bar Association, which found that expert family barristers are being driven away from their work to represent the interests of vulnerable women and children as a result of repeated cuts in legal aid pay. 

Justice Secretary and Lord Chancellor Jack Straw called for a “better balance in legal aid” in England and Wales, in a speech at London School of Economics in March. 

The family Bar is at breaking point, warns Desmond Browne QC 

Family law barristers have joined with the NSPCC to call for an urgent Parliamentary inquiry into the state of the family justice system. A coalition, including the Bar Council and Family Law Bar Association, have written to the chair of the House of Commons Justice Select Committee, Alan Beith MP, calling for an inquiry into the impact of repeated cuts in the family justice system. 

Funding for specialist advisers providing support in severe cases of family breakdown has been cut, in moves announced last month by the Ministry of Justice and Legal Services Commission. Lucy Theis QC, Chairman of the Family Law Bar Association, warned of two-fold risks: “These cuts will result in the inability of wives to secure proper financial provision from a husband determined to hide assets…The Government is making this area of practice less attractive for prospective barristers…This will deny vulnerable families and children effective access to justice.”

The Legal Services Board (LSB) has unveiled its vision for the next five years. 

Philip Mott QC answers your questions on the new advocate assesment scheme.  

One of Lord Carter’s legal aid review recommendations was that a system of quality monitoring should be set up for advocates. He hoped that the scheme for publicly funded criminal advocates would be in place by the time the new graduated fee scheme was implemented. Some saw this as a “trade off” for the increased level of graduated fees, which came into effect at the end of April 2007. 

Desmond Browne QC welcomes the progress made on VHCCs, but notes the sombre news for publicly funded practitioners 

THE Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year Awards saw two outstanding publicly-funded practitioners scoop the two awards, for Legal Aid Barrister of the Year and Young Legal Aid Barrister of the Year. Cherie Booth QC presented the awards at a ceremony which saw the best of the publicly-funded Bar celebrated by their peers. The Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year Award, which was sponsored by the Bar Council, went to Robert Latham, of Doughty Street Chambers. Robert’s nomination was supported by a number of leading members of the legal profession including Lord Justice Sedley; Keir Starmer QC; and Jan Luba QC, last year’s winner of this award. Robert’s 30 year career at the Bar has seen him lead the way in applying the Disability Discrimination Act to housing; he is a leading authority on the
housing allocations and homelessness aspects of the 1996 Housing Act; he has been at the forefront of litigation about tolerated trespassers. Robert is also a prolific writer and educator and, over the years, has trained and acted as mentor to dozens of other housing lawyers. 

The Young Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year Award, sponsored by Irwin Mitchell, was presented to Felicity Williams, of 6 King’s Bench Walk in London. Felicity was a founder of the Young Legal Aid Lawyers group and has been its vice chair since she was a trainee barrister. She has devoted significant time to campaigning and lobbying on behalf of the junior, publiclyfunded Bar, and has managed to combine this with a successful criminal practice. Described by those she has worked with as ‘dynamic, energetic and with a mature grasp of the issues and politics’.