Editors' Blog

'We will fight them in the high streets...'

Posted 17/01/2007 by John Malpas

There wasn’t a seat left in the house for the Special General Meeting on legal aid at the Law Society this morning. Around 400 angry solicitors descended on Chancery Lane to rail against the Government’s criminal legal aid reform proposals (see story). A fire alarm midway through proceedings only added to the sense of drama as solicitor after solicitor stepped forward to rally the troops.

Time was when local solicitors were characterised along with doctors, vicars and the country squire as the epitome of middle England. If this meeting is anything to go by, then middle England is getting downright rebellious. More strike action is promised as the tussle with the Government promises to get increasingly bitter.

The last time high street solicitors got so agitated was back in the mid-1990s, when there was a campaign to secure higher conveyancing fees, believe it or not. Unsurprisingly, it failed. This time around, the profession will be hoping for a little more sympathy from the wider public. Law Society president Fiona Woolf described the battle as “the most important issue facing the profession and the public”.

But persuading the public of this fact will be an uphill battle. When compared to the NHS and education, justice simply doesn’t get a look in. Just ask the judges, who complain long and hard about the dilapidated state of the nation’s courtrooms. What is more, there is no getting away from the fact that the legal aid system is in desperate need of reform.

Furthermore, the solution proposed by Lord Carter and his team of experts, which includes Allen & Overy senior partner Guy Beringer, looks rather sensible. If introduced in the right way, block contracts and competitive tendering will surely lead to a more efficient system. It is also difficult to contest Carter’s contention that consolidation should be actively encouraged among the estimated 2,500 providers of criminal legal aid.

Given the scale of the consolidation needed, however, the £10m transitional fund being put together by the Government to facilitate the process looks paltry. Solicitors also complain bitterly that the Bar has had an easy ride and that more should be done to clamp down on high-cost cases.

But the profession should have seen this coming and you cannot help but ask why it has allowed itself to be manoeuvred into such a precarious position. That said, the Law Society - liberated from its onerous regulatory duties - does seem intent on making up for lost time.