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17 January 2008 / David Burrows
Issue: 7304 / Categories: Features , Legal services , Procedure & practice , Profession
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The End

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Sadness and anger mark David Burrows’s decision to stop doing legal aid work

 

In September 2007 I decided that my firm could no longer do legal aid work. Mine is a small practice doing only family law work— including judicial review and professional negligence arising from family proceedings. My fee-earning staff had consisted of two fellows of the institute of legal executives (FILEX)—both had been with me nearly 10 years—working full-time on legal aid cases (mostly children proceedings); and a solicitor whose case load was about half legal aid (in terms of time spent). I have found one FILEX and her files another home—the other found her own job.

 

ACCESS TO JUSTICE?

The sorry history of legal aid since the Access to Justice Act 1999 (AJA 1999)—how sick is the euphemistic newspeak in that title?—has been rehearsed elsewhere. Things came to a head in March 2007 over a new contract which the Legal Services Commission (LSC) planned to impose on us. Judicial review applications were made, including a successful

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