Family law lawyers' ability to offer access to justice curtailed

Many family law lawyers were angered and dismayed by the recent allocation of family law legal aid contracts by the Legal Services Commission (LSC).

Proposed cuts to the Ministry of Justice's (MoJ) budget have been blamed for the reduction in the number of firms given the new three-year contracts for publicly funded family law work and the Law Society has sent a pre-action protocol letter to the LSC challenging the lawfulness of their decision.

A statement made by the president of the Law Society, Linda Lee, highlights the family law profession's ethic that it has a responsibility to protect the public interest and that a reduction in access to justice, particularly when it affects some of the most vulnerable in society, cannot be in the public interest.

The statement declared the willingness of the Law Society to engage in talks with the LSC and the MoJ in a bid to avoid litigation and resolve the urgent issues, but, it was stressed that if an agreement could not be reached, the Law Society were prepared to bring proceedings before the High Court.

The LSC's handling of the recent tender round of family legal aid contracts has seen the number of firms whose family law lawyers will be able to undertake publicly funded work after 14th October 2010 reduced from 2,400 to 1,300. Critics have suggested this will leave some clients in a "legal advice desert" and unable to quickly gain access to justice when they need it most.