Bridget Prentice, the Minister for Legal Aid, offered little comfort to a packed room of 250 legal aid lawyers, who had voiced their concerns at low financial reward, continuing cuts and increasing administrative hurdles. She was speaking at South Bank University earlier this month at an evening of discussion and debate on the future of publicly funded work organised by Young Legal Aid Lawyers (YLAL) and chaired by Jon Snow of Channel Four News. YLAL is a group set up in April 2005 of student and newly-qualified barristers and solicitors who believe in the importance of good quality representation and advice to those who could otherwise not afford it. The group believes there is an intrinsic value to devoting their legal skills to helping those who are disadvantaged and marginalised within society and aims to voice the concerns of the next generation of legal aid lawyers. But with diminishing legal aid and a raft of new proposals which will limit access to effective civil and criminal justice, is it feasible for young lawyers at the beginning of their careers to commit themselves to publicly funded work? With the on-going ‘Fundamental Legal Aid Review,’ the government’s message is clear – it wants us to provide an efficient and fair legal system but it is not prepared to invest in it. So what is the future of legal aid and what does it mean for young lawyers?

The rather disheartening answer came from Robert Brown, an experienced criminal practitioner and force behind London’s campaign against Price Competitive Tendering, who concluded that young lawyers starting off in a legal aid practice today need “rich parents and a calling” to sustain a career in publicly funded work. So why should young lawyers bother to commit to a career within the legal aid sector? Members of the audience shared depressing stories of debt in the region of £30,000 with no prospects of ever paying it off. The Minister maintained that legal aid lawyers are still viewed as being comparatively well-paid and dismissed notions of waiving debt or allowing young lawyers to join the key worker schemes. It was clear that the financial difficulties of young practitioners and the insecurity of the profession as a whole was having a very real effect on the audience. A straw poll by Jon Snow revealed that only 35% of the audience felt sure that they would be still doing legal aid law in five years time. Considering the passion and dedication which members of YLAL express time and again in their meetings, this was a truly sad indictment of the lack of morale at the junior end of the profession.

How has it got to this depressing stage? Roger Smith, Director of Justice, gave the audience a potted history of legal aid and general overview of the current problems. But he also reinforced the raison d’etre for legal aid work - the power of the law and the power of the lawyer in the service of the powerless, which it is all too easy to forget in the present climate. Despite the somewhat desperate sounding plea of the Department for Constitutional Affairs to “embrace the ambiguity,” the real problem facing legal aid at the moment is the sheer confusion about policy, including uncertainty over terminology and u-turns in strategy. Roger emphasised the need for the government to be clear about the purpose of legal aid and the skills of the lawyer in providing that service. He was adamant that the quality of the lawyering and the lawyers has improved over the last thirty years, despite the “nightmare” of legal aid policy.

Richard Miller, Director of the Legal Aid Practitioners’ Group, provided a detailed critique of what the present changes will entail, focusing on the Carter Review, to be published in the new year, which will fundamentally alter the legal landscape. However, his biggest criticism was reserved for the so-called ‘Tesco’ outside ownership of law firms which proposes multi-disciplinary practices with anyone entitled to own their own firm. He believes that it would fatally compromise the independence of legal aid lawyers which can literally mean life or death for the client. He asked how commercial businesses, with a legal responsibility to maximise profits, could be compatible with the professional duties of a lawyer. He was disappointed that the government does not seem to comprehend the fact that legal cases are not homogenous products, and that charging a single price for a ‘product’ which could either be one phone call or several weeks work, is nonsensical. He ended his lecture with a rallying cry by saying that we could and should not accept the present limit of £2.1 billion for legal aid expenditure and there was a solid case for continuing to fight for more money. On that note, 250 legal aid lawyers rushed to eat the free dinner and drink the free wine, leading one observer to comment that judging by the scrum by the tables, we indeed must be poorly paid!

After the interlude, the Minister and the rest of the panel arrived, although it would be fair to say that Jon Snow’s arrival on his famous bicycle caused more interest amongst the young lawyers, with a few geeky students spotted asking him to sign their table napkins! The subsequent debate was fiery and provocative, particularly towards Ms Prentice, who has been in office for only three months, and as Jon Snow said was indeed courageous to brave the wrath of the audience.

Jon Snow kicked off the debate by asking whether or not there were any ‘fat cats’ in the audience, but sadly no-one owned up! An audience member pointed out that rates have remained unchanged since 1996 and it is only now that the Bar Council is taking some action, despite the Junior Bar being increasingly squeezed since 1991 when junior rates were cut. However, the Minister said that the Bar, not the government must take responsibility for looking at the livelihood of junior barristers. She was asked how that was possible when there were more and more offences being legislated. Indeed, Roger Smith had pointed out that since 1997 there have been 21 pieces of legislation with ‘crime,’ ‘criminal,’ ‘offence,’ or ‘police’ in the title; the new Criminal Justice Act has 338 sections and 38 schedules and if the sections in all the new statutes were laid out, it would make 85 Freddy Flintoff’s head to toe! Jon Snow managed to get an undertaking out of a rather reluctant Minister that she would analyse the numbers on the new offences. Jon Snow pointed out that Tony Blair got to power on the back of lawyers and criminal justice, but the Minister noted that Blair was an exceptional politician! and she insisted that legal aid lawyers were comparatively well paid, which drew some gasps from audience members, many of whom are paid at appallingly low rates.

A trainee solicitor asked whether Price Competitive Tendering (also referred to by audience members as ‘Tesco-isation’) would have any effect on ethnic diversity, as smaller practices, more likely to be composed of minority lawyers, will find it hard to compete. Sundeep Bhatia, panellist and member of the Society of Asian Lawyers, concluded that it would have a cataclysmic effect, not only on minority lawyers themselves, but also on the communities whose language and culture they understand better. The audience clearly agreed, clapping enthusiastically. He questioned how this was compatible with the government’s stated policy on achieving diversity in the legal profession. The Minister conceded that this was an important issue and could be a real factor in considering the workability of PCT but insisted that the general principle of PCT is not a bad one. She said that it was extremely important that consumers (also known as ‘clients’ to lawyers!) know what they are getting when they employ a lawyer. She gave us a sneak preview of an announcement that she intended to make the following day- a challenge to the biggest firms to publish diversity proposals. Perhaps not the announcement we were hoping for, but a scoop for YLAL nonetheless! Robert Brown was disparaging about PCT, saying that it will necessarily mean a decrease in quality because lawyers will employ underqualified staff in order to offer a competitive service. Roger Smith pointed out that the simple experience of economics showed that prices go down but then cartels form and push the prices back up. .

Felicity Williams, vice-chair of YLAL and barrister at Doughty Street, questioned whether lawyers could really expect to retain their independence and argue for guaranteed remuneration. When the Minister asked for a show of hands as to how many members of the audience would consider working for a public legal service, only a few stray arms went up. Responding to a question from a law student about the increased use of non-qualified advice workers at law centres and Citizens Advice Bureaux, the Minister maintained that she felt “passionately” about the work done by the advice sector and claimed that 99% of cases could be resolved without going to court. She talked of the importance of receiving generalistic and holistic advice which is easily accessible. However, the questioner received a large round of applause when she stated that it was still necessary for laypeople to refer clients to well qualified lawyers.

After the inevitable question about the legal aid budget, the Minister stated that it had in real terms gone up 20% in the last five years, and that Carter would review these questions. Jon Snow commented that it seemed that the only comfort the government could give was to wait for the Carter Review. The Minister was adamant that the government would not be able to push the Review aside, even if the conclusions Lord Carter reaches may be unpalatable. Chair of YLAL, Laura Janes, referred to the Minister’s recent comment that legal aid lawyers should be as easy to find as “cream cakes and baked beans.” Referring to the potentially disastrous consequences of Tesco Value baked beans at 3 pence a tin, she asked the panel how accessibility could be increased if “beans really means Heinz.” The Minister stuck to her guns, stating that people were no longer prepared to see lawyers in a mystical light and the consumer must be at the heart of the legal system with sufficient redress if necessary. Jon Snow concluded by identifying a palatable fear amongst young lawyers about the future of legal aid. But as the audience rushed off into the night, it was clear that the vocation of those taking up the baton of young legal aid may be diminished but is not extinguished.

If you would like to know more about Young Legal Aid Lawyers, please visit www.younglegalaidlawyers.org