Duncan Lewis Solicitors have successfully challenged the Legal Aid Agency’s refusal to backdate legal aid certificates, even where solicitors have made a legal aid application as promptly as possible and it is necessary to begin work in order to secure access to justice for a client before the Legal Aid Agency has granted a certificate. Their contention in the litigation was that the Legal Aid Agency and Lord Chancellor have failed to recognise that the legal aid regulations must contain an implied power to backdate certificates, or are ultra vires.

In response to that claim, the Government has agreed, in open correspondence, to amend the Civil Legal Aid (Procedure) Regulations 2012 to expressly allow for legal aid certificates to be backdated to the date of application for legal aid.

Read the full press release here.