Defending access to justice

Access to justice, the hallmark of a fair society, has never been more under threat. Proposed cuts to the legal aid and civil costs system threaten access to justice for some of England and Wales's poorest and most vulnerable people.

In 2010/2011, the Law Society actively campaigned against the proposed cuts to legal aid, responding to the government's proposals with our own Access to Justice review. Throughout the year, we also lobbied government to secure important victories to secure access to justice for families.

We launched the Sound Off For Justice campaign, enabling the legal profession, opinion formers and the public to tell government exactly what they think about the proposed curtailment of justice. We will continue this campaign and our parliamentary lobbying throughout the year as we respond to legislative proposals to put the changes into effect.

Government proposes drastic legal aid cuts

The Government's Green Paper on the reform of legal aid has proposed the most radical shake up of the legal aid system since it began in 1949.

The proposals aim to cut legal aid spending by £350m by 2014. This includes abolishing legal aid in areas such as:

family law
clinical negligence
immigration
social welfare categories such as:
- housing
- debt
- welfare benefits
- education

Many of these areas of law relate to problems commonly experienced by the poorest and most vulnerable members of society. The proposals will reduce the number of people financially eligible for legal aid, restrict access to face-to-face advice though a telephone 'gateway' and impose a 10 per cent cut in legal aid fees.

By reducing client eligibility and threatening the viability of legal aid practitioners, the proposals seriously curtail access to justice.

Human Rights facts

Over 2,800 lawyers subscribe to our human rights database.
We trained over 150 people last year in international human rights and pro bono intervention drafting - we've trained over 750 since 2008.
We investigated almost 100 cases of lawyers facing persecution in 30 countries with 60 interventions drafted by trained pro bono volunteers.

Defending legal aid

The Law Society responded to Government Green Paper proposals to cut legal aid. As set out in our own access to justice review, the Law Society believes:

Expenditure could be reduced by increasing efficiency across the justice system rather than cutting legal aid, such as by a more efficient criminal prosecution process.
A levy should be imposed on the financial services industry to fund legal aid for high cost fraud cases.
Measures of this nature would reduce legal aid expenditure by around £384m, more than the government are seeking to save under the green paper proposals. The Law Society's alternative proposals have been widely reported in the press and quoted by MPs in parliamentary debates.

Find out more

‘The Law Society has in recent years shown great commitment to access to justice. It has put considerable time and resources into supporting this fundamentally important cause and has provided much needed support to practitioners. The Law Society has campaigned strongly for a fair legal aid system and has raised the profile of legal aid among the public. Its elected members and staff are to be congratulated on their tireless work.’
Carol Storer, director, Legal Aid Practitioners Group

Victory for vulnerable families

In September 2010 the Law Society helped to secure an important victory for vulnerable families, in securing a victory against the Legal Services Commission (LSC) in the High Court, quashing the outcome of the tender round for new family legal aid contracts which would have seen the number of offices where the public could get subsidised help with family cases cut from 2,400 to 1,300.

The High Court declared that the LSC's family legal aid tender round was unlawful and severely hindered access to justice for vulnerable children and their parents. The decision followed a three-day hearing of the Society's application for judicial review at the Divisional Court.

Former Law Society president Linda Lee, commenting on the victory, said:

'The LSC's actions would have translated into thousands of people facing grave difficulty in obtaining justice – ordinary people who are already facing extraordinary difficulties. Legal aid clients are some of the most vulnerable in society and access to legal representation where required is their only hope of achieving justice.

The Law Society has always maintained that this wholly unplanned major restructuring of the legal aid market would cause immense uncertainly and instability for many of the poorest and most vulnerable. It is regrettable that the LSC didn't stop to consider the consequences of its actions before pushing ahead and cutting vital services that clients need and that a civilised society expects to be provided.'

Sound Off For Justice

The Law Society's Sound Off For Justice Campaign was developed in response to government's proposed cuts to legal aid and changes to civil litigation. We believe that the proposed reforms will have a devastating effect on society and the rule of law.

Sound Off For Justice is an opportunity for the legal profession to come together and shout out that access to justice must remain available to everyone, not just to those with the means to pay. We're encouraging solicitors, celebrities and the public to visit the campaign website and sign the petition to demand that access to justice remain.

Over 13,000 people have already 'Sounded Off', and their messages will be sent to justice minister Ken Clarke. We also had a number of Sound Off For Justice cabs roaming London in May, fitted with iPads and iPhones to let passengers sign an online petition or record voicemail protests.

Visit the Sound Off For Justice website

Why we need to Sound Off

The Ministry of Justice's proposals will lead to savings of just 16 per cent in the legal aid budget but will cause a 68 per cent reduction in the number of civil and family law cases receiving legal aid funding. This will remove help for more than half a million cases each year. The proposals would remove the right to legal aid that supported the families affected by the Thalidomide scandal, the Ronan Point housing disaster and the Clapham rail crash.

The Law Society has suggested alternative savings plans which would protect legal aid provision for the neediest in society. We believe we can find the £350m the Ministry of Justice wants to save – and more – without resorting to taking whole areas of law out of legal aid provision. The Justice Select Committee recently concluded that the government should assess the merits of our proposals.

Protecting human rights

The rule of law, the proper administration of justice and human rights are core values which the Law Society seeks to uphold, both at home and abroad. We provide human rights training for solicitors. We lobby and influence policy and decisions makers at national, governmental or supra-national levels on human rights issues.

We also run the Lawyers for Lawyers programme, which seeks to protect and promote lawyers who face violence, and or intimidation for simply carrying out their professional duties.

Some of the human rights issues that we challenged this year:

presented a report on attacks on lawyers in Mexico. The report was submitted to the UN Special Rapporteur for the Independence of Judges and Lawyers. The Law Society was then invited to present its findings at a meeting during the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.
submitted evidence to parliament on UK's implementation of judgements of the European Court of Human Rights.
in May 2011, we called on the international community to help prevent further breaches of international law at Camp Ashraf, Iraq.
Read more about our work on Camp Ashraf

‘The Law Society's brilliant work in respect of Camp Ashraf is what makes me proud of being a member of the Law Society’
Masoud Zabeti, partner, Mischon de Reya