“We forget the legal aid system was established by lawyers as part of the welfare state”

As a lawyer, you have a unique relationship with your clients. They come to you expecting to have a trusting and confidential relationship.

As a family lawyer, I’ve seen and dealt with the most unbelievable things. Often, I’m the first person who’s ever been in my client’s corner.

Many of them have had difficult childhood experiences and, as adults, may have developed mental health or addiction issues.

I am often the first person they’ve talked to about what’s happening.

There are lots of people who are exposed to awful abuse and they need help.

I think that’s what keeps you going, even as awful as the legal aid situation has become.

Court buildings are falling down and legal aid lawyers are being paid around £40 an hour.

I locked myself out of my house the other night and a locksmith came to let me in. I paid him £150.

That seems perfectly reasonable for an emergency job but when I’m doing an emergency legal job, I get £40.

Our clients are going through the most difficult time in their life and you’re hoping you’re the one that can help them get to the other side.

And when you succeed, it’s the greatest feeling.

Sometimes clients will call you to tell you how they’re getting on. It’s a reminder that, without legal aid, they might not have had anyone at all.

“You can’t conduct a fair trial if a perpetrator is examining a survivor”

One consequence of the government cuts to legal aid was that more domestic abuse perpetrators appeared in court unrepresented.

This creates a serious problem, because you can’t conduct a fair trial if a perpetrator is examining a survivor.

The Qualified Legal Representative (QLR) scheme was introduced to prevent this.

But in one case I was involved in, the QLR was representing the perpetrator in a criminal case happening at the same time.

We challenged this as unfair to our client and it ended up going to the president of the Family Division – he agreed and discharged the QLR.

“People wait years for a resolution”

The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders (LASPO) Act has cut so many people out of legal aid.

What used to happen is, if you were on a low income, you could see a solicitor. You just produced evidence of your income, and you would sign up for initial advice.

Normal, decent, hard-working people who can’t afford a lawyer at private-client rates used to be able to get that little nudge in the right direction.

LASPO took the reality check out of the process.

With early advice, solicitors were able to refer people to mediation and avoid court.

By taking this away, people often issue court applications because they don’t know what else to do. This puts pressure on courts – increasing delays.

People are waiting years for a resolution to a problem that wouldn’t have been a big deal if they had access to early advice.

There are fewer firms offering legal aid, so clients have less local choice.

We have people phoning all the time trying to get a solicitor and you have to think about whether you can practically take it on, because the government fees for legal aid are so low.

We shouldn’t have to be doing that.

People should be able to see a solicitor and, at the very least, get that proper triage so they know what their rights are.

“We warned the LAA about the contingency process”

Put on top of that this cyber attack and seven months without being properly paid.

Can you imagine if doctors were told they weren’t going to be paid in full for seven months because of a cyber attack?

Because we’re lawyers, we’re not seen as being part of the structure of the welfare state when in fact legal aid is part of its foundations.

We warned the LAA about the contingency process. We told them it was likely to take a lot longer to fix than they seemed to believe, and that if it went on for any length of time, it would be a nightmare. They wouldn’t listen.

A few years ago, there was a big cyber attack on one of the cloud providers that supplies IT for a lot of law firms and barristers’ chambers.

We lived through that experience and knew how hard it is to cleanse and restart a system. Of course, we didn’t think it would be seven months.

I bet once we’re looking at how it happened, the answer will be that the Ministry of Justice (MoJ)  knew the LAA system was on its knees before the cyber attack.

I’d been a part of a couple of working groups looking at potential new systems. But they were just hoping it would hold on long enough without someone attacking it.

We work with the MoJ and LAA to do what we can to make what we’ve got work better.

There are still things that can be improved and there’s a mutual wish to make things better.

“Improving our public services takes will from government”

There’s also a knock-on effect on the legal system from government cuts to other services.

People can’t access treatment for mental health issues, support services for families like family centres and Sure Start have been taken away.

Issues that once would have been addressed become legal problems. The law is having to step in because there’s no other safety net.

In cases where parents are repeatedly having children removed, there are no services to shift the dial for them. You’ve got some charities, but then it’s a postcode lottery.

There’s no joined-up thinking by government – it’s purely about crisis management, not actually solving the problem.

People forget the legal aid system was established by lawyers, by the Law Society, as part of the welfare state.

It came from the same mindset as setting up the NHS, setting up universal education.

The reason the legal aid system is suffering now is because of government underfunding.

Fundamentally, improving our essential public services takes will from government.

We’ve gone through several periods of austerity and none of this is sexy, it’s not what people want to spend money on.

Everyone wants money spent on prisons to keep people in but there’s more to the justice system and more the government can do.

I think it’s sad because there is this disconnect.

It comes down to money, as it does in health, education and special educational needs. All these things, they’re just all grossly underfunded.

“There need to be people coming through who have the passion to help”

Firms don’t want to offer training contracts in areas that are not that profitable.

The profession is splitting again. It’s gone back to how it was when I started.

Because, if you were on the fast track to a Magic Circle firm, you’d gone to Oxbridge, got fantastic results and got all the contacts, you were going to get one of those jobs and that is still doable. It’s obviously competitive but you can still do it.

In social justice areas, firms cannot afford to offer training contracts.

Even if you do get a training contract in a medium or multi-office firm, it’s likely they’ll want you to do the more profitable work like private client or conveyancing. It’s unlikely to be crime or family.

You have to make a mental decision in your 20s about the type of career you want.

Do you accept a career that’s going to be quite low paid and hard?

You’ve got that student loan debt sitting there – you’re thinking you’re never going to pay it off. You’re thinking about ever-increasing housing costs.

So, it’s a tough call. And even if you make that call, finding a job is not easy.

There are people out there who have found themselves in difficulty, needed a lawyer, spoken to a lawyer and then thought “oh God, I could not have got through this if you hadn’t been there”.

Our communities need lawyers.

It is rewarding work and there need to be people coming through into the profession who have the passion and energy to help.