The Legal Aid Agency—formally known as the Legal Service Commission (LSC) —was wrong to refuse to pay the full cost of an expert witness report ordered for a child by the family court.
The Court of Appeal held the LSC should not have refused to pay more than one-third of the expert’s fees, in JG v The Lord Chancellor [2014] All ER (D) 192 (May), [2014] EWCA Civ 656.
The Lord Chancellor, for the LSC, argued that parents who are not legally aided should pay their share of the expert’s fee. The Law Society, intervening, countered that the expert was instructed by the child alone.
According to the Law Society, the decision means the Legal Aid Agency will in future need to look at the facts of a specific case to decide whether it should pay the fees in full, and that where unrepresented parents cannot afford to commission expert evidence it may be appropriate for the full costs to be borne by the child through their legal aid certificate.
Geraldine Morris, head of LexisPSL Family, says: “Family justice resources are under huge pressure at the moment.
“The bringing into effect of the Child Arrangements Programme on 22 April was with the primary aim of reducing damaging delay in private children proceedings. The decision by the LSC in this case caused a lengthy period of delay, and the Court of Appeal’s decision will therefore be welcomed by practitioners and parties alike in the hope that the court’s guidance will assist in similar future cases.”
