Legal Aid cuts and bidding

elrasho

elrasho

elrasho

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'One of the most controversial changes is the introduction of competitive tendering for legal aid contracts in a bid to drive down fees. The new contracts will be far larger than existing centrally fixed agreements and are likely to lead to further consolidation among solicitors' firms. The government has, however, backed away from the threat of competitive tendering in crown courts where most barristers work'

From guardian.co.uk

I know a friend who's a criminal lawyer for a small firm, he's very scared his firm wont be able to beat the big national firms like Forbes and Tuckers if this bidding starts and so they'll close down and him being out of a job. Having read a few more articles criminal law solicitors of small and big firms may go on strike!

Anyone here a criminal law solicitor? What are your thoughts?
 
Tuckers bunch of ambulance chasers, used to work in criminal justice, make a decision to deny a prisoner something ok good grounds and get a letter from these retards!
 
MrMoonX said:
Tuckers bunch of ambulance chasers, used to work in criminal justice, make a decision to deny a prisoner something ok good grounds and get a letter from these retards!
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No idea what you mean but pretty sure it's about Tuckers and not the proposed changes
 
Government want to make the justice system more competitive, I can see Tesco introducing their own brand of criminal lawyers with double clubcard points. On a serious note this is diabolical, it will significantly reduce the quality of justice served not to mention the closer of small firms who can't compete with big boys. How is this going to save money? It's not, it's going to cause more problems than good.

Having firms compete each other to represent a client is ridiculous, the bigger firms will be able to afford to lower their costs and so will get all the business. Having said that, they won't be happy about this either, their losing money too. What happens to the smaller firms? They simply cannot compete and cease to exist along with hundreds if not thousands of criminal solicitors out of work. No one wins with this proposition.
 
elrasho said:
Government want to make the justice system more competitive, I can see Tesco introducing their own brand of criminal lawyers with double clubcard points. On a serious note this is diabolical, it will significantly reduce the quality of justice served not to mention the closer of small firms who can't compete with big boys. How is this going to save money? It's not, it's going to cause more problems than good.

Having firms compete each other to represent a client is ridiculous, the bigger firms will be able to afford to lower their costs and so will get all the business. Having said that, they won't be happy about this either, their losing money too. What happens to the smaller firms? They simply cannot compete and cease to exist along with hundreds if not thousands of criminal solicitors out of work. No one wins with this proposition.
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The quality of justice served?
In criminal law?
By giving the dfence poorer free lawyers? So thecrown wins more often?
Is that detrimental to our criminal justice system?
I'm not convinced.
 
This could also have an impact on my department because we deal in Clinical Negligence & Personal Injury claims.
The way I look at it is that Solicitors will have to take a chance on customers coming through the door and perhaps write a couple of letters for free and pay £50 for the disclosure until they know if they have a case.
The only problem is that only about 1 in 10 Pre Action Disclosures actually become a Letter Of Claim and they still might not win.
 
Dimple said:
This could also have an impact on my department because we deal in Clinical Negligence & Personal Injury claims.
The way I look at it is that Solicitors will have to take a chance on customers coming through the door and perhaps write a couple of letters for free and pay £50 for the disclosure until they know if they have a case.
The only problem is that only about 1 in 10 Pre Action Disclosures actually become a Letter Of Claim and they still might not win.
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These areas have already seen large changes to their costs regimes implemented by the Jackson Report.

A lot of solicitors will enter into CFAs in these areas anyhow though.

Criminal changes are very concerning though as advocates were already pretty much doing every other case for free. Now it'll be the case that it really squeezes the junior end of the criminal bar. It's my view that the changes, ostensibly aimed at increasing competition and by extension better access to justice (as in people can shop around more and the lawyers have to be more competitive), is really going to mean that better advocates will go elsewhere and that in many cases people will be put off joining the career and that inferior quality practitioners at the junior end will be more prevalent.
 
The criminal Bar has been shattered by these cuts. Soon gone are the days of quality advocacy in the criminal courts. Sad days ahead for liberty I feel. It'll be interesting to see how 'competitiveness' will change justice in the coming few years.
 
Voltar said:
Solicitors won't be the worst affected though- it's the advocates :(
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The Jackson reforms have made for some crazy tactical changes for Claimants and Defendants... not being able to recover Defendant's costs at trial, for example, is pretty alarming!

Still not sure who is worse off in litigation. It's just different.
 
danielanthony said:
Competition happens in every other industry, lawyers aren't civil servants so welcome to the real world.
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'Sorry your lawyer was too overworked to pay attention to your case and had no support, but profit is more important than justice, ya know?'
 
Nitefly said:
The Jackson reforms have made for some crazy tactical changes for Claimants and Defendants... not being able to recover Defendant's costs at trial, for example, is pretty alarming!

Still not sure who is worse off in litigation. It's just different.
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They certainly have... "access to justice" being the tagline used throughout that report and its predecessor (the Woolf Report) may have been well intentioned, but from what I've seen in the county courts it is putting quite a heavy burden on the advocate who turns up to not only act on their instructions but also to assist the defendant as well by providing them advice. He wanted smaller claims to be more user friendly and to take the lawyers out of matters (in some ways) and allow people to litigate themselves. Ultimately that isn't going to help matters as judges and the lawyers who turn up will have to be far more accomodating for them and it'll also mean that there'll be less efficiency with trials and hearings. This is because there'll be more ineptidude and further costs incurred by having to adjourn more often.
 
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