Legal aid question

[balia]

Reading on another thread, I saw that if someone insists on going to a contested hearing with very little chance of winning, they would lose their legal aid certificate. Is this always the case? DH went back to court to get an order for holiday contact and the Cafcass report has come back overwhelmingly in his favour. At directions, the judge made it plain that he would be ordering in line with the report and urged DH's ex to agree.

She has MH issues and DH is concerned that if they revoke her legal aid she will try to self-rep and then appeal the order after on the grounds she had no legal counsel.

Is he worrying about nothing or could this happen?

Also - sorry - both DH and his ex have been asked to submit statements "limited to the quantum of contact". What exactly does that mean (not the new bond film, I'm guessing).

I think it may depend on the area of law, and don't know about family law, but in some areas you have to satisfy a 'merits test' as well as a 'means test', so you won't get legal aid if your solicitor thinks you have less than 50% chance of success.

Quantum means amount, so the statement should deal with the frequency and length of contact only.

So - sorry if being a bit thick - can DH ask for others things eg for DSS's passport to be kept by a third party (and say why)?

Disclaimer: Am not a solicitor.

It sounds to me too that what's being described with the contested hearing is the merits test. Anyone launching legal action that they have little chance of winning is probably going to fail the merits test for legal aid.

There's lots of info on DirectGov about legal aid.

Thanks, i've had a look on the Direct Gov site, and had a bit of a read around. DH says he is sure that his ex got legal aid when they first went to court years ago (for the contact order) and because ex is still on benefits we just assumed she was getting legal aid - from what I've now read, it looks like she may well have decided to fund it herself; apparently she did mention she had considered it. Or would she have got it at first and then they look at it again after the Cafcass report?

So confusing. If she appears at ther contested hearing without her solicitor, will she have grounds to appeal because she didn't have legal advice?

I doubt it. I don't do family law and my area is definitely merits tested. I regularly have to turn clients away because they have less than 50% chance of success. They often go to court unrepresented. In these cases, the Judge holds their hand a little bit through the hearing but they are no more likely to win and certainly don't get to appeal on the basis they were unrepresented. In my (non-family) area, you can only appeal further if the Judge has made a mistake in applying the law to the facts in front of him.

Oh thank you - DH has been really worried about it (plus the hearing would be even more of a nightmare) because it has been such a difficult process and now things seem straightforward it would be really hard to face having to go through the whole thing again. We just want DSS to be able to come on holiday with us and spend some quality time in school holidays, DSS is desparate to come on holiday with us and spend more time with his Dad (and told the Cafcass lady so, brave soul) and the Cafcass report recommends it. We still have to wait months for the contested hearing but fingers crossed.

You can do the passport thing, I've just seen it on a court order.

Excellent. DH did ask ex's sol about it, but she said that she wouldn't do it because even if the court ordered it if ex told her to refuse to hand it over she would be in a difficult position. So not sure who we can say should hold it. But I don't think anyone who sees ex in action in court will question the need to do it. In fact DH says he is going to ask to pick DSS up the night before we fly so there's less potential for her to do something that would mean we missed our holiday.