Not a day passes when I don’t feel intense frustration about the government’s unconcealed disdain for legal aid lawyers. Legal aid lawyers are an amazing, but fast dwindling, group of human beings. No-one really just ends up being a legal aid lawyer, it’s a conscious decision the practitioner makes either when looking for a training contract or in the early years of practice. It takes dedication and an unshakeable belief that justice should not be just for the rich. The motto of my firm is ‘Justice for All’, and it’s a principle that everyone at the firm believes in.
I’ve been a Family Law solicitor for 21 years, and it feels like I’m watching a car crash in slow motion at present. I am increasingly seeing talented lawyers leaving legal aid work as they cannot justify the burden of the huge number of hours of work required, against the low rates of pay, particularly if raising a young family. We struggle to recruit new legal aid solicitors now, with great candidates unable to accept job offers because of the rates that legal aid firms are able to pay. As solicitors gain experience, they have to constantly increase the number of hours they work in order to hit the ever increasing targets. Most legal aid lawyers find themselves working long extra hours in their evenings and at weekends on too routinely a basis.
It is nothing less than a travesty that legal aid rates have not increased at all over the last 20 years (let alone by inflation), and to add insult to injury they were actually reduced by 10% for Family law under LASPO. They are shaved even further to the bone by the imposition of fixed fees rather than providers being paid for the work undertaken. Providers of legal aid are going out of business at an ever increasing rate and I understand why, the spirit is willing but the cold reality of business means a solely legal aid practice can never be profitable. The cost of living crisis may drive out more amazing small providers, with smaller businesses simply unable to justify what is effectively a pay cut each time prices rise but legal aid rates do not.
There is a false perception in some quarters that the work of legal aid lawyers is somehow of a lesser quality that the work of lawyers who practice for private rates. It’s frustratingly unfair, but I can see where that perception arises. The derisory pay rates for legal aid work gives the lay person the impression that the work undertaken is of a poor quality, it is not valued by those who set those rates. I have observed on social media suggestions about trying to find a way to raise funds to pay for ‘better quality’ legal advice rather than looking for a legal aid solicitor. It feels like a losing battle but I do try and disabuse people from that way of thinking. Rather more of my free time than I’d like is spent on social media, engaging in such debates, and also trying to signpost people who can’t afford legal advice (or don’t fall in scope any longer – a rant for another day). Arguably the dedication required by legal aid lawyers to keep doing the work despite the challenges and the limited financial rewards, makes them determined, experienced and formidable lawyers.
Increasingly solicitors are being encouraged by their firms to undertake more and more private work to ensure those firms can continue to run. The very wise Managing Partner of my firm has a saying that privately paying work is the `petrol to fund our legal aid car’. It’s personally taken me a while to accept that I have to adjust the balance of my caseload to ensure I can continue to do the work I love.
A few years ago I found myself becoming disillusioned, and pondering which alternative career I could pursue. Around that time I took on an interesting non-accidental injury care case. This type of case is tragically poorly paid, and involves a lot of hard work often involving extensive paperwork/medical notes, and numerous medical experts often with nuanced conflicting opinions. They are considered so complex the LAA will permit two counsel or even a KC (I still want to say QC), yet solicitors are still paid poorly. This type of case appeals to me due to the focus on medical matters, as if I’d taken another route at life’s crossroads, I’d have trained to be a doctor. We secured an amazing result for our client, with findings being made against the father of the child, and the Judge concluding that the baby should be swiftly returned to the mother, who had missed out on most of the child’s first year of life. As my previously unemotional client broke down and sobbed with joy after the hearing, I found myself in tears with her too. I don’t cry with my clients as a rule, but the emotion I shared with her at the conclusion of this complex case took me by surprise. I realised that I had again found my joy. We made a huge difference to the lives of that mother and her child, this is valuable work, it actually means something, and it’s the work that I get the most satisfaction from because of that. The fact that it’s so undervalued by the LAA and the government is appalling in my opinion.
I have a lot of sympathy for all of the public sector workers who are currently engaging in strike action. The cost of living crisis is very challenging. I can only imagine the public outrage if teachers, firefighters or paramedics had not had a single pay increase in 20 years, yet the issue of Legal aid is constantly put on the backburner by the government, with vague promises of reviews that never really materialise into anything. The conspiracy theorist in me believes the unspoken hope of the government is that all legal aid providers quietly drift away, so that legal aid just fades into history.
I have resigned myself to a caseload that is now only 50% legal aid cases these days, but I am glad I do still get to undertake the work I enjoy and really believe in. I do feel very sad that in years to come experienced & knowledgeable practitioners may not be able to undertake legal aid work at all if something doesn’t change, and change soon. I fear that in future by economic necessity, legal aid cases may be more likely to be conducted predominantly by inexperienced fee earners, and that is not an appealing prospect, particularly for vulnerable clients who require skilled representation. That is not true access to Justice, it’s a two-tier justice system.
Patricia Beckett
1 February 2023