header-logo header-logo

Home Login E-newsletter About us
15 November 2024
Issue: 8094 / Categories: Legal News , Legal aid focus , Profession
printer mail-detail

NLJ this week: Radical solutions needed for legal aid

© Copyright LexisNexis 2026. All Rights Reserved.
196803
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.

Smith writes: ‘The brutal truth is that the model of civil legal aid developed as part of the post-war welfare state is bust.’ He traces the rise and fall of legal aid, from its inception in 1949 to its peak in 2010 and subsequent decline as legislation removed most civil areas from scope in 2013.

He makes two major suggestions, one of which is to ‘rework legal aid as a community or national legal service which incorporates a wider range of providers’. 

Issue: 8094 / Categories: Legal News , Legal aid focus , Profession
printer mail-details
RELATED ARTICLES
 

MOVERS & SHAKERS

Read All
Sponsored by
NLJ Career Profile: Nikki Bowker, Devonshires

NLJ Career Profile: Nikki Bowker, Devonshires

Nikki Bowker, head of litigation and dispute resolution at Devonshires, on career resilience, diversity in law and channelling Elle Woods when the pressure is on

Ellisons—Sarah Osborne

Ellisons—Sarah Osborne

Leasehold enfranchisement specialist joins residential property team

DWF—Chris Air

DWF—Chris Air

Firm strengthens commercial team in Manchester with partner appointment

NEWS
Read All
NLJ this week: Conditional job offers carry hidden risks for employers
A simple phrase like ‘subject to references’ may not protect employers as much as they think. Writing in NLJ this week, Ian Smith, barrister and emeritus professor of employment law at UEA, analyses recent employment cases showing how conditional job offers can still create binding contracts
NLJ this week: Diamond rings and broken promises

An engagement ring may symbolise romance, but the courts remain decidedly practical about who keeps it after a split, writes Mark Pawlowski, barrister and professor emeritus of property law at the University of Greenwich, in this week's NLJ

King sets out Starmer’s legislative agenda
The government will aim to pass legislation banning leasehold for new flats and capping ground rent, introducing non-compulsory digital ID and creating a ‘duty of candour’ for public servants (also known as the Hillsborough law) in the next Parliament
Decision on divorce & domicile

An Italian financier has lost his bid to block his Australian wife from filing divorce papers in England on the basis it was no longer her domicile of choice

Early disclosure has not met its goals, lawyers say
Reforms to the disclosure regime in the business and property courts have not achieved their objectives, lawyers have warned
Copyright © 2026 LexisNexis
back-to-top-scroll