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A cold wind blows

15 November 2024 / Roger Smith
Issue: 8094 / Categories: Opinion , Legal aid focus , Profession
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Roger Smith on why he believes the model of civil legal aid developed as part of the post-war welfare state is bust

The Autumn budget provides little comfort for civil legal aid practitioners. The good news was that the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) overall budget was increased by just under £14m—an annual increase of 5.6%. The bad news was that this largely went on new prison places, more staff and ‘thousands of new electronic tags to monitor offenders’. There was not a word about addressing the crisis in civil legal aid.

That crisis has been documented by the Law Society for some time. It is true that the society is not exactly an impartial source. Its members are hurting here. But few objective observers could quibble with Chancery Lane’s plea for a full ministerial review of legal aid back in February: ‘Without immediate cash investment, civil legal aid providers are facing an existential crisis. Over the past decade the number of legal aid firms has nearly halved, while the number of

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NEWS
Artificial intelligence may be revolutionising the law, but its misuse could wreck cases and careers, warns Clare Arthurs of Penningtons Manches Cooper in this week's NLJ
Bea Rossetto of the National Pro Bono Centre makes the case for ‘General Practice Pro Bono’—using core legal skills to deliver life-changing support, without the need for niche expertise—in this week's NLJ
Small law firms want to embrace technology but feel lost in a maze of jargon, costs and compliance fears, writes Aisling O’Connell of the Solicitors Regulation Authority in this week's NLJ
Charles Pigott of Mills & Reeve reports on Haynes v Thomson, the first judicial application of the Supreme Court’s For Women Scotland ruling in a discrimination claim, in this week's NLJ
The Supreme Court issued a landmark judgment in July that overturned the convictions of Tom Hayes and Carlo Palombo, once poster boys of the Libor and Euribor scandal. In NLJ this week, Neil Swift of Peters & Peters considers what the ruling means for financial law enforcement
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