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The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has opened its consultation on a £20m boost for housing and immigration legal aid practitioners.

The Ministry of Justice’s latest review of civil justice has failed to inspire Roger Smith, former director of Justice. In his NLJ column this week, he reveals he read all seven reports over the new year and ‘did so with a heavy heart’.

Reading between the lines of the government’s latest review of the civil legal aid system, Roger Smith unearths the same old fundamental problems at its heart

Solicitors are to receive a criminal legal aid rates rise while Crown Court sitting days will increase in number to tackle the still-rising cases backlog

Lawyers have hailed the first increase in civil legal aid in 30 years—an extra £20m for housing and immigration. The last funding rise was in 1996.

Duty solicitors at police stations will receive an extra £18.5m from 6 December, while legal aid lawyers at youth courts will get a £5.1m boost for the most serious cases, the Lord Chancellor Shabana Mahmood has confirmed.

It feels like civil legal aid has been in crisis forever—so is the current system simply irreparable? In this week’s NLJ, Roger Smith, former director of JUSTICE, argues that we need a radical rethink.

Roger Smith on why he believes the model of civil legal aid developed as part of the post-war welfare state is bust

Firms are continuing to abandon civil legal aid work, with 1,236 firms contracted with the Legal Aid Agency this year, compared to 1,320 last year and 1,500 in 2019-20

Roger Smith reflects on the radical vision that created law centres & left a lasting legacy

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MOVERS & SHAKERS

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Arc Pensions Law—Matthew Swynnerton

Chair of the Association of Pension Lawyers joins as partner

Ampa Group—Kamal Chauhan

Group names Shakespeare Martineau partner head of Sheffield office

Blake Morgan—four promotions

Four legal directors promoted to partner across UK offices

NEWS

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NLJ this week: Renters’ Rights revolution begins—brace for tribunal chaos

The abolition of assured shorthold tenancies and section 21 evictions marks the beginning of a ‘brave new world’ for England’s rental sector, writes Daniel Bacon of Seddons GSC

NLJ this week: Civil procedure gets a spring overhaul

Stephen Gold’s latest Civil Way column rounds up a flurry of procedural and regulatory changes reshaping housing, alternative dispute resolution (ADR) and personal injury litigation

NLJ this week: Why GP complaints are going nowhere

Patients are being systematically failed by an NHS complaints regime that is opaque, poorly enforced and often stacked against them, argues Charles Davey of The Barrister Group

NLJ this week: Prenups meet a jurisdictional brick wall

A wealthy Russian divorce battle has produced a sharp warning about trying to challenge foreign nuptial agreements in the wrong English court. Writing in NLJ this week, Vanessa Friend and Robert Jackson of Hodge Jones & Allen examine Timokhin v Timokhina, where the High Court enforced Russian judgments arising from a prenuptial agreement despite arguments based on the landmark Radmacher decision

NLJ this week: Has Rylands v Fletcher come back from the dead?

An obscure Victorian tort may be heading for an unexpected revival after a significant Privy Council ruling that could reshape liability for dangerous escapes, according to Richard Buckley, barrister and emeritus professor of law at the University of Reading

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Legal aid focus

MOVERS & SHAKERS

Arc Pensions Law—Matthew Swynnerton

Ampa Group—Kamal Chauhan

Blake Morgan—four promotions