Time for lawyers to get political

Barrister and solicitor representatives have hit the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat party conference circuit, with the Law Society highlighting Brexit, access to justice and use of legal technology, and the Bar Council calling for more spending on the justice system.

Chair Andrew Walker QC and chair-elect Richard Atkins QC will be speaking at events organised by JUSTICE, Liberty, the Society of Labour Lawyers and the Society of Conservative Lawyers. In a briefing note for MPs and party members, the Bar Council said justice was ‘rising up the public, media and political agenda as the consequences of austerity measures are beginning to sink in’.

The Bar Council said the removal of legal aid from large areas of civil law had left law centres unable to cope and forced to turn away deserving clients whose problems spiralled out of control and became more expensive to put right. Judges were concerned about the rise in litigants in person (LiPs), whose cases took on average 50% longer to determine and resulted in more appeals, eating into court time and resources, it said, and justice should be properly funded in the next government spending round.

The Law Society said the EU ‘has facilitated an effective single market for legal services’, allowing lawyers and law firms to set up in the EU. Unless alternative arrangements were agreed, post-Brexit UK lawyers would fall back on more than 30 different national regulatory systems, ‘facing restrictions and limits to their practise rights’. It called on the government to negotiate mutual access for lawyers, including rights of audience in EU courts and legal professional privilege at the EU Commission.

On access to justice, the society urged the reinstatement of legal aid for early advice in housing and family law, to prevent escalation of problems.