In an interesting debate developing in the UK around access to justice some commentators are making the point that access to justice doesn’t just mean access to a lawyer. It’s about being able to enforce legitimately held legal rights. Frankly, the lawyer can be the problem.
It is argued that this was a point made in a paper by the Young Legal Aid Lawyers this month. Quality in the Legal Aid Sector cites examples of justice frustrated because lawyers simply aren’t up to the job, such as a homeless woman who lost her chance to appeal against the local authority’s refusal to house her after her adviser failed to provide evidence of her serious mental health problems.
The variable quality of legal advice is a big issue for the entire profession The legal landscape is undergoing a seismic shift as a result of the implementation of the Legal Services Act 2007. The momentum for change began as a response to the profession’s lamentable failure to get to grips with complaints about shoddy work. More than 10 years ago, before anyone was even talking about “Tesco law”, that Lord Irvine gave the Law Society an ultimatum to sort out complaints-handling by the end of 2000 or lose part of its regulatory powers.
“The majority of cases that are properly conducted result in firms being substantially underpaid,” the group concludes. But that’s only half it. Fixed fees at the wrong level have an insidious impact. It changes the mindset of caseworkers, a point made by the consultant David Gimore: “You’re tempted to take short cuts or provide limited advice.”
Young Legal Aid Lawyers also flag up paralegalisation, where “one partner supervises around 10 solicitors who in turn supervise 40 paralegals”. The idea is that efficiencies are delivered through economies of scale. But it’s the young lawyers who are at the bottom of that pile. “New lawyers can’t be blamed for being unaware of things they don’t know,” the authors write.
The debate around legal aid is framed in terms of a fight for survival for practitioners. That’s understandable given the current fiasco around the tendering process, but we can’t lose sight of the quality of the product.
