No more legal aid for divorce and family cases

[Batteryhuman]

here

So that would be women who get it in the neck in the interests of saving money again

I have name changed for this thread as it relates to my occupation, which I prefer to keep relatively confidential. I just wanted to make a couple of comments (I work as an expert in a particular specialised area the family courts).

Talking glibly about experts fees being cut does not take into account the years and level of qualification/experince you need, to do this kind of work, and the difficult, extrordinarily complex and often distressing nature of the work in the family courts. I have over twenty-five years of professional training behind me for example. And a lot of the cases I see, which involve severe child abuse, sexual abuse, killing and other violence, are dreadfully difficult to deal with. It is only fair, I believe, that I am at least paid a decent amount for doing this kind of work.

I also think it is unfair on the judges to say they just sit and bang a gavel. The decisions to be made in child care cases are often very very complicated, agonising and extraordinarily difficult. They are making decisons which split familes, may take children away from their parents forever, or alternately, could lead to a child being further abused or kiled. I would not be able to sleep at night as a family court judge and am very glad I am not one!

Quietword, that is exactly my fear - who is going to protect these children if there is no legal aid for family cases? Some people are in family court for real big reasons. How are they going to do this if they have to self-represent? Possibly against their childs abuser who may also have to self-represent or (not sure which is worse tbh) against the solicitor acting for the abuser.

Parents in these situations stand no chance and it is certainly not a simple as "well they abused the dc so they don't get access so no need for LA" as many many of them do - hence the need for these, very costly, expert reports and so on.

It honestly scares me that people are going to find it so much harder to protect children through the courts.

I begin this message by declaring an interest as a specialist family law solicitor with over 20 years experience particularly in the legal aid field.
The legal aid currently available for child protection cases, ie where a child is subject to care proceedings brought by a local authority is not affected by the proposed changes. This type of legal aid is available to parents and people with parental responsibility regardless of their means, so in fact a multimillionaire would be eligble for legal aid in this context.
The cases that are however affected are "private law" ie, disputes between parents about the arrangements for their children, divorce and matrimonial law generally. However, the legal aid system for these types of cases has been eroded for a number of years due to changes in eligibility criteria such that most people with significant equity in a property would not be eligible. Furthermore, most people who own a property end up paying back their legal aid so in a huge proportion of cases, the system is really a form of loan/credit which is repaid at the end, including interest. There is therefore an argument to say that removing this type of legal aid from the system is not actually likely to save much as it does not in fact cost that much.
There has always been a huge emphasis on mediation which in most cases is a pre-requisite to obtaining legal aid, so again, there is nothing particularly new about that proposal either.
What is signiciant however is that lots of firms of solicitors who would be willing to offer this service are being put out of business by these changes which means that whole communities do not have access to justice across a whole range of legal subjects including those that will remain covered by legal aid. Rather like dentists doing NHS work, virtually impossible to find in most towns these days so will be legal aid solicitors. Those that do continue cannot afford to operate the system with experienced qualified solicitors doing the work, so even if you can find a firm still operating, the chances are you will be seen by an unqualified paralegal. If you take the analogy of NHS dentists again, would you really want an unqualified person drilling in your mouth?
There is no easy solution to this problem and I fully appreciate that there is very little sympathy for solicitors in the wider community, but the common perception of legal aid lawyers as fat cats could not be further from the truth. Most solicitors in private practice who do legal aid work get paid about the same as a primary school teacher or a nurse, considerably less than the £100,000 contracts that most GPs are on. No one does legal aid work for the money but we are a committed bunch of dedicated professionals and I for one find it very frustrating when I read comments (not here happily) that see legal aid as simply a mechanism for lawyers to make money without appreciating the service that we provide that so many families depend on. I have yet to see any comment that regards the NHS budget in similar terms ie that it exists to line the pockets of the medical profession.
Legal aid is a part of the welfare state and we all have to fight together to defend it so please contact your MPs to lobby about this. They do not listen to us as professionals but they may well listen to you.

'They do not listen to us as professionals but they may well listen to you.'

Ours is a turncoat LibDem who will lose his job at the next election. He listens to nothing we have to say.

Yes it is true that child care cases are still going to get LA, but the LSC (the body that pays out the legal aid) are already basically capping experts fees and refusing to pay above a certain level. (Invoices of mone are starting to be sent back and queried, something which has never happened to me before in nearly twenty years of being involved with this kind of work).

I have had to cut my hourly rate by 25% already (and I was not charging any more that everyone else and less than some). This of course has a major impact on my income level and causes me to start rethinking whether I really want to do this difficult and sometimes completely soul-destroying type of work for the rates they are now prepared to pay. I sometimes spend my weekend looking through post mortem phiotographs of murdered children. Is it really worth it, I ask myself.

What will happen is that people less qualified and experienced, who are prepared to take lower rates, will end up doing more of the work in the end, to the detriment of justice and of everyone involved. To save money.

sorry should he said "invoices of mine"!

good thing I do my work better than I type here on mumsnet! Am doing this while trying to stop an eighteen month old from unpacking all my desk drawers so apologise for errors!

Isn't there an EU Directive on access to justice? How do Clark's proposals meet those requirements?
EU law has primacy over national law, so with any luck he'll be stopped. Except, of course, no individual will have the means to take a case to court to prove it...

Thats right there will still be legal aid available for mediation - in fact, the rumour is that mediation will be compulsory for parties in all family cases. I support that but do worry about the practacalities - so many clients and so few mediators and so little time ...

Mediation should not be used for cases involving domestic violence, though. Surely?

That's right edam, it's specifically not recommended for dv cases. I looked into it and was told they wouldn't 'touch my case with a bargepole'! Nice way of putting it.

Legal aid is continuing for dv cases though?

but at least we can chant "we are all in this together"

will that effect SEN law also Riven...oh fucked in fighting for ds if the case....LEAs will be taking the Michael good and proper!

Am I only the only person who doesn't think the Government should be paying for peoples divorce lawyers

I still don't see why its the governments job to pay for your lawyer in a divorce. If you can't afford one then you should self-rep, divorce really isn't that complicated. I think the new Government has got this right

Is it not being kept for DV anyway

DV is very difficult to prove, I've done it, it took ages and was terrifying and humiliating process. I was lucky because I had reported it to the police, a lot of women don't.

This law is going to affect women and children worst.

Werdator, you have to draw a distinction between the process of ending a marriage (a freestanding divorce) and sorting out the other more complicated issues namely disputes about children, money, property and pensions. All of these issues can be further complicated by an imbalance of power between the parties, domestic violence, mental health issues, deliberate concealment of assets, emotional abuse to name but a few. I would agree that there are some cases where all that is required is to proceed to decree absolute and many people can do that themselves especially if the petition is based upon two years' separation and consent. But in my experience of over 20 years of practice as a family solicitor, those cases are few and far between. Most cases raise a whole range of complex issues and for many people the emotional cost far exceeds the financial. Furthermore, representing yourself is a very bad idea when you are so emotionally involved and one of the very good reasons to instruct a solicitor should be that you have the benefit of independent, dispassionate, legal advice to enable you to make sound judgments about your own future and that of your children. Finally, as I said in my previous post, legal aid is a loan in most divorce cases so the idea that "the taxpayer" pays for divorces through legal aid is not a reflection of the reality in most cases.

Werd, access to justice is a social good that helps society run efficiently and deserves state support where necessary. Otherwise we aren't a civilised nation. It's also a requirement under EU and international law.

If people can't afford to take bad employers to court, if people can't afford to sort out all the problems when getting divorced, the costs don't disappear - they are just shunted somewhere else. Mental illness and childhood poverty, for instance, greater reliance on benefits if you can't challenge a spouse who hides assets, mental illness again wrt employment and all the costs borne by society from bad employers - 'accidents' at work for instance.

Why should the taxpayer have to pay someones legal fees? Once again its the culture in this country that everyone expects something for nothing. The goverment are right on this. If you want legal help or advice PAY FOR IT! Dont expect me or any other hard working person to pay for it for you! You wouldnt expect me to pay for your weekly shopping (or maybe you would!).

"Why should the taxpayer have to pay someones legal fees? Once again its the culture in this country that everyone expects something for nothing. The goverment are right on this. If you want legal help or advice PAY FOR IT! Dont expect me or any other hard working person to pay for it for you! You wouldnt expect me to pay for your weekly shopping (or maybe you would!)."

Because being a stay at home parent means you don't get paid. and if you don't get paid, how can you pay legal fees?

It's a genuine question.