News
Criminal lawyer groups have agreed to join forces and speak with one voice—led by the Law Society—when negotiating with the Legal Services Commission (LSC) over legal aid reforms. The united action will kick off with a national demonstration on Monday 5 November.
In a statement the London Criminal Courts Solicitors’ Association, Criminal Law Solicitors’ Association, Criminal Defence Solicitors Union, Association of Major London Criminal Law Firms and Independent Lawyers Group say they will be part of a single negotiating team with an agreed set of objectives.
“We want this to be a transparent process, and to ensure that there will be no separate bilateral meetings between any organisation and the LSC and government without the negotiating team being kept informed,” the group says.
The move comes after the LSC announced the determination of the general criminal contract, with new contracts to be dated from 14 January 2008 for a period of six months. There will be an invitation to express an interest and only firms that respond will be considered for a contract.
Contracts will be awarded if lawyers continue to meet the “contractual requirements” and accept all the changes but the contract will be for only a six-month period, to be followed by a move to the existing unified contract in July 2008.
A further consultation paper on best value tendering will be issued and the LSC’s final proposals on the graduated litigator fee scheme are yet to be announced. The LSC still intends to impose on 14 January 2008: fixed fees in the police station; graduated litigators fees in the Crown court (subject to the outcome of the consultation); a new very high cost cases panel; the routing of all calls via the defence solicitor call centre; and the expansion of Criminal Defence Service Direct.
The action group says: “Our associations have been informed by many of their owner members that they feel unable to continue to provide out of hours services in the police station due to the constraints of underfunding. Pending the regional and London meetings, and the advice of the Law Society, the professional associations urge you all not to take any steps to indicate interest in future contracting on unfair and uneconomic terms.”
The LSC says it is confident that the majority of firms will sign up to the new criminal contract in January, adding that if firms do not register for a new criminal contract their work will be reallocated to “other providers who have expressed an interest in expansion”.
