Many firms are in dire financial circumstances due to the COVID-19 crisis exacerbating existing difficulties. Law Society figures released this week showed 124 criminal law firms (10% of the total) have closed in the past year. And, while many practitioners hoped the ‘accelerated items’ list―concerns prioritised by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ)―would help, this has fallen short.
Consequently,
the Law Society issued an urgent call for help this week, in a supplemental
response to the government’s criminal legal aid review.
It called on
the MoJ to address firms’ cashflow problems through adjustments to how the
Legal Aid Agency (LAA) pays for work; provide relief for law firms from business
rates; and immediately reverse the previous cut of 8.75% for criminal legal
aid. It urged the MoJ to ‘improve the broader package of accelerated measures
and bring to the fore the focus on sustainability in the context of the
criminal legal aid review’, and urgently look at the sustainability of the
civil legal aid system.
These requests
are additional to the Law Society’s main response to the review, in which it
called for an increase in rates ‘across the board’, ‘a higher fee for sent
cases’ and 100% payment for cracked trials.
‘As a result
of the pandemic, work for criminal legal aid firms has fallen through the
floor―leaving many hanging on for survival,’ said Simon Davis, Law Society
president.
‘Without
urgent intervention, there is danger that many more duty solicitor schemes will
face imminent collapse. We have made clear since the start of the pandemic that
criminal legal aid firms are facing a triple whammy: immediate cashflow
problems, short to medium term permanent loss of income, and the pre-existing
crisis of sustainability.
‘Unless the
government addresses all three, there is a serious risk of widescale market
collapse. The accelerated items proposed by government were already
insufficient to match the scale of the problem – firms urgently need the funds
originally promised, as well as additional support to meet the new crisis.’
Fees for
defence practitioners have not increased in cash terms for 25 years. Fewer
solicitors are choosing criminal law as a career, which could lead to long-term
sustainability issues. Davis said many areas of the country have very few duty
solicitors under the age of 35 years, and some duty schemes are unlikely to
survive the year.
