To ask for your support to protect Legal Aid?

[Thistledew]

Access to justice regardless of your financial means has been considered to be the fourth pillar of the Welfare State, and as essential a right as education, medical treatment, and benefits. The proposed cuts to funding for legal aid will deprive some of the most vulnerable people in the UK of effective access to justice.

Those who will be hit the hardest will be

women

children and young people

disabled children

migrants and family members of migrants

victims of environmental pollution or people injured at work

victims of clinical negligence

Many critics of the proposals have pointed out that the proposed cuts are unlikely to produce an overall saving in money. Many people will be forced to try to conduct litigation in person, leading to court time being wasted. In cases relating to housing matters, for instance, where people will only be able to receive legal advice once they are imminently at risk of losing their home, small legal problems that could be dealt with quickly and simply by early legal advice, will build up to big problems that can only be resolved through court intervention.

In asylum cases, justice really will be up for sale to those who can afford it. Under the current proposals, a person will not be entitled to receive funding if they have succeeded in their case but the Home Office appeals to a Higher Court. There would be nothing to stop the Home Office presenting a weak case at the first appeal, and then bringing out their stronger arguments when the person seeking asylum is unrepresented before a senior court.

Next week will see the third reading of the Legal Aid, Sentencing & Punishment of Offenders bill in parliament. Please support the Sound Off for Justice campaign by signing their petition and using this on-line form to lobby your MP.

Lawyers are massively overpaid, if they want work, they will now have to charge more reasonable rates now they can't just expect the state to cough up.

TO be honest I think no win no fee is the way to go rather than legal aid that way the loosing side pays all the costs and lawyers would be unwilling to take cases on that are not likey to win and will also encourage them to give proprer advice

I remember when my ex bil took my sister to court for custody he had little to no chance of winning but was not working and was entitled to legal aid why did his laser take it on I would wager if it was no win no fee the case would not have been taken on

My nephew had always lived with my sister and ex hadn't seen nephew for 3 years

JLK2 what do you think are fair hourly rates for lawyers? I expect you'd be surprised how low the legal aid rates are. Noone does this work for the money. But then I'm in criminal defence and some people seem to think I shouldn't be paid at all.

Thanks for posting this Thistledew.

Willbean, typical MN reaction is that anyone earning a penny over minimum wage is lucky and has no cause to moan at all.

It's not about whether or not someone is overpaid. It's about what the nation can afford.

Right now it's just another "Oh don't cut me!" argument which is useless given we have to make cuts somewhere.

What would you rather cut instead? Jobseekers? Disability? Defence? Education? NHS? Libraries? Councils? What exactly would you like to cut so that legal aid can be maintained?

JKL2 - the rates that lawyers are given for legal aid are actually about half or less of their normal hourly rate. They are really not overpaid and every single penny they claim has to be fully accounted for. If you want to get rich from the law, you don't go into legal aid!

Niceguy - I agree with you, these are really tough times and it is hard to put forward a case for a particular service not to be cut. All of the services you mentioned are important. The only thing I would say is that this is not saving a great deal of money in the scheme of things. It's about £250 million which is the cost of running the NHS for about 40 hours or 4 Eurofighter jets or about one seventh of the cost of our involvement in the war in Libya.

I would argue that this money is an investment and actually saves the tax payer money in the long term by reducing the social costs of relationship breakdowns. Some people might think that justice has a value beyond the purely economic and we should ensure that we protect our access to it.

Fullbeam. I agree that legally aided work is not on the whole brilliantly paid bbut there are barristers working in family law who routinely earn £250,000 pa just doing contact and residence hearings. No doubt they work hard because of the volume of work they do but the issues are pretty straightforward a lot of the time. There work is publically funded. Are they really worth more than for example, an NHS heart specialist?

I actually don't disagree with you. But it's tiresome to hear "Don't cut me....nasty Tories" nowadays.

I have no problems with someone saying "We could fund legal aid by cutting the NHS budget by the same amount". At least there's something to debate then.

The problem is that the legal aid bill is an annual bill, we couldn't cut 4 Eurofighters a year as we'd soon run out of them. And the war in Libya is over so comparing it to one off costs is not an apples to apples comparison.

I've had two legal battles and both times I've found I've been at a huge disadvantage because my ex's were both on legal aid. The first took me to court over access then later demanded less contact than I offered day 1. She was on legal aid, it cost me £5k to find out all she wanted was to save face.

The second time despite having a declaration of trust, my exGF held me to ransom over the house split knowing it would cost me thousands to take her to court. Again she was on legal aid.

So for me personally I can see in some situations this will help level the playing field.

'Their'

Blinkineck - Nobody has any sympathy for lawyers, I understand that, and the point of this campaign is not so that lawyers can complain about their pay. It is to protect justice.

However, I have a little trouble with your figures. Here is a more comprehensive survey of what family barristers earn and the conditions in which they work.

Niceguy - The examples I gave were to illustrate how small the legal aid budget is not necessarily to target those things for cuts.

I take your point about your ex partners having an unfair advantage because they did not have to pay for their legal representation as you did. From your point of view, I can see that looks unfair. (I do wonder how it looks from their point of view.)

In the future, this inequality will be much more widespread as the partner without funds will not be able to afford legal representation at all. So, if you are saying that the one who runs out of money first will be the loser, then the woman on benefits will lose every time. Does that seem fair to you?

abusing it should be sorted first. i know of several people who've been sued and felt they have to pay up because the other party is on legal aid and because they work they cannot afford to fight the case. this is obviously not fair.

Why is it an abuse to claim something you are entitled to?

If you think it gives an unfair advantage, that's another matter. So without legal aid, the poorer person would always be forced to give in. Is that fairer?

Babybarrister. I know people who earn this type of money. The majority of their work isn't complex. It's quantity not quality. At the provincial bar you can get through a lot of matters each day. They add up. I am not saying that all family practitioners earn this, but some, a sizable minority do. Fwiw the income of my family relies virtually entirely on legal aid. I think lawyers are paid too much. There are definitely too many barristers in England and Wales. I know this is about 'access to justice' but imo the legal aid budget and the amount lawyers are paid is inextricably linked with this issue.

Blinkineck, did you look at the link I posted? www.familylawweek.co.uk/site.aspx?i=ed55687 .

I did look at the document and I have just picked myself up off the floor arter rofl. If there are people earning that amount of money doing family work, which, if the Bar Council's figures are right, there must be, I wouldn't want them anywhere near me if I was in the shit. It goes to my earlier point I suppose about a more streamlined Bar...

Maypole, taking legal aid, and therefore representation, away from parents in care cases would not prevent them from holding up proceedings. They'd still be able to argue against any application but would generally take a lot longer to do so. They wouldn't have the benefit of advice which might persuade them to behave reasonably. The same applies to parents in private law cases. I expect that the family courts will all but grind to a halt.

These are pretty extreme cases bb but these people do exist. And I'm sorry but I don't buy it that the average family prac earns £66,000. Without revealing too much I know precisely how much a legal aid practitioner can earn. I assure you this is not historical or fantastical. The Govt are going to screw the Bar and only the strongest will survive. Hopefully this won't impact too much on people's ability to secure decent access to justice.

Whatever barristers earn isn't the point. The point is 99% of people will be denied access to justice. Doctors or midwives screw up and leave your baby permanently disabled and in need of life-long care? Tough shit. Husband (or wife) turns violent? Tough shit. etc. etc. etc.

Only of course it will end up costing the taxpayer a lot more money as the courts system clogs up with litigants in person. Lose, lose, for victims of injustice and for the taxpayer.

Why does a debate on people's access to justice always turn into a diatribe against how much lawyers supposedly earn?

The average salary for a legal aid lawyers far less than that of the average way for a GP, but you never hear suggestions when people talk about NHS waiting lists or postcode lotteries that doctors should only get paid for the people that they successfully treat, or that they don't deserve what they earn.

We are facing a serious threat to the ability of each and every person in this country to have their voice heard in a court of law, for us all to be equal before the law, and what do people say? "Never mind about that, those lawyers are too greedy!".

I like this quote.

WILLIAM ROPER: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!

SIR THOMAS MORE: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?

ROPER: I’d cut down every law in England to do that!

MORE: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down, and you’re just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!

Legal aid lawyers are the foresters who protect our legal trees. Get rid of them at your peril.

Edam - I totally agree with what you have written and I find it hard to understand why there isn't more outrage about this.

Thistledew - great quotation.

Signed.

Mr Edam here. Signed - so much for "one law for rich and poor" without the current scope of Legal aid. Thistledew, your quotation will stay with me, so I thank you for it. (Sorry Mrs E - please have your account back now ...)