to court, whenever possible. We do not want to create a litigious society but one in which people respect one another's rights.

How will the removal of legal aid increase access of justice to all. Is there some sort perverse logic which says that because the citizen can have a lawyer representing him against a huge corporation which already has a lawyer this takes away his right to justice

It is unfortunately the nature of the beast that argument is complex and in my experience it is the defendant lawyers who have developed a culture of arrogance that they believe they can beat the legal aid system which has been weakened as a result. There appears to be an unfortunate attitude that has developed that the citizen simply does not deserve the ability to take on large corporations.

If the large corporations and their advisors chose to stall and delay the inevitable (at present so long as legal aid exists) then that is their problem.

In fact this is out of date there has been a considerable enhancement since 1994 to win because firstly the specified legal aid rates (£65 per hour) have not increased whilst the approved rates court by court have (currently £75 per hour) and secondly there was built into the specified rate system an exclusion 50% mark up so that to win will produce £112.50 per hour as opposed to £65 per hour which means there is a substantial incentive to win for personal financial gain for the plaintiff lawyer. I find it staggering that in a matter of such fundamental importance as this that such a basic matter as this could be either misrepresented or misunderstood.

In any case there I believe that to assume that Plaintiff lawyers are simply motivated by their own personal greed is entirely unfair and inaccurate they do have clients who they cannot ignore because they would not have them very long if they do.

At the moment the client still has the right to select his own lawyer which generally he does on the basis of results. It hasn't quite reached the stage where in a democracy the government through its agency (The Legal Aid Board) has selected/nominated the lawyer to represent the client on the basis of "administrative quality control" as opposed to "results quality control". This simply means that the Plaintiff solicitor cannot ignore his lay client and the position would be much improved if the client was paying a small contribution towards his case.

In my experience the problem has been the Defendant lawyers who appear to have the capacity to waste the insurer's monies stalling rather than settling perhaps it's because those responsible for spending the money are not spending their own money.

By way of example a few years ago I had two P.I. claims running at the same time one insurer accepted liability straight away and did not instruct lawyers. They even paid for operations to speed up the claim which unfortunately didn't succeed but they paid £50,000 damages and £6000 costs. The other company instructed lawyers defended everything to the door of the court lost numerous interlocutory applications in their delaying tactics and on the eve of trial paid £30,000 damages and £25,000 plaintiff's costs with no doubt a similar sum to their own experts and lawyers (£25,000).

This meant that the first claim cost a total of £56,000 and the citizen received £50,000 compensation and the second claim cost £80,000 and the citizen received £30,000 in neither case which were both supported by legal aid did it cost the government anything in net terms although they did support the expenses on an underwriting basis

The statistics are short of details as to how much the net cost is attributable to the specific proposed categories which are intended to be removed cost.

That is how much of the budget relates to money only claims and in particular Personal injury claims.

One of the ways which would save money and speed up the processing of litigation would be to streamline and bring into the 20th century the legal cost assessment process not necessarily by imposing fixed costs but getting rid of the ancient "four column bill" procedure and replace it with a schedule system which could be produced in standard spreadsheet format and could therefore be calculated in seconds and the adjustments could be seen.

Indeed the new Legal Aid Board Claim 1 form is a major improvement on assessment of costs by the board and it could be adapted to improve and simplify the taxation (assessment of costs) procedure. The present approach is I submit self defeating that is an over enthusiastic detailed investigation which results in additional costs (which have to be found somewhere) and even more delay which both have impact upon the citizen who doesn't receive his compensation and may end up having to pay some of the costs of the case that he wins.

I fail to see how to "remove and reduce" the scope of legal aid can realistically be called a "modernisation" it is simply a withdrawal. It may or may not be failing the people which is a matter of debate but it will absolutely fail if it doesn't exist.

• Promote access to justice for the majority of the population in England and Wales through the wider availability of conditional fee agreements.
  This will make access to the courts a reality for the majority of the population of England and Wales. Conditional fees ensure that the risks of litigation are shared between the lawyer and the client: clients do not pay their lawyers fees unless they win; and lawyers, when they win, receive a level of fees that recognises the risk they have taken. Lawyers are better placed to know the strength of a case and how to deliver the most successful outcome. We know that conditional fees work: already, over thirty thousand people have used them to bring claims.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Refocus legal aid by removing cases which can be financed in some other way and promoting access to justice for the needy by directing the legal aid budget to priority areas.
  This will allow the Government ultimately to concentrate publicly funded support on legal services towards helping people secure their basic rights such as a decent home, appropriate social security benefits and challenging officialdom through judicial review, and towards assisting cases that raise issues of wider public interest. The present system does not allow the Government to do this. It allows no assessment of the importance of classes of cases or any way of targeting help towards priority needs. The Government simply pays for the amount and type of legal services that lawyers wish to provide.

• Where is the sharing on a "no win no fee basis" The lawyers are apparently being told to provide the support to the citizen that the government is withdrawing. They are in fact telling lawyers how to run their businesses at the same time as dodging responsibility of one of the fundamental purposes of a government that is providing a justice system for the benefit of all.
  It is not appropriate to rely on the statistics of the number of policies as an indication of he success of the scheme. It certainly is wise to protect the citizen from personal risk of costs liability in such circumstances and in realty there is no measure of how many cases would have been run anyway without that protection previously.
  There has been a problem with the implications of the indemnity principal where the citizen has suffered an obvious injustice but can't obtain legal aid so that he has to commit himself to the obligation to pay substantial liabilities of costs which are increased because the Defendant runs the costs up using delaying tactics and "bank rolls" the case. The risk is that at the end of the case the Defendant starts trying to investigate the reality of the citizen's obligation to pay his lawyer win or lose. If there is no such commitment the defendant cries foul and the Plaintiff lawyer doesn't get paid. The reality is however that for years Plaintiff lawyers have been doing a lot of work for "private clients" on the basis that the receive payments from their clients to cover the cost of disbursements with perhaps a small payment on account towards the lawyers fees if the claim is a big one but generally the Plaintiff Lawyer has awaited the conclusion of the case and the defendant's payment before he expects payment. The lawyer therefore has simply risked the realty that the citizen may lose and may not physically have the money to pay him especially as prior to insurance the defendant could theoretically be responsible to pay his opponents costs.
  The insurance schemes are not however without difficulty in the so called "no win no fee" environment is that now not only can the defendant lawyers supported by multinational corporations stall the settlement they will actually be paid for doing so if the matter doesn't proceed whether it is withdrawn lost or struck out for failure to proceed so they now have a bonus incentive to delay as well, whilst the plaintiff lawyer is in the most vulnerable position even more than his client which in many cases will mean that he will be in conflict with his client and may for example be forced to settle on inappropriate terms to ensure that he gets something out of the litigation
• How will the removal of underwriting support to the part of the legal aid system that costs the government virtually nothing (indeed probably makes a "profit" if the recovery of state benefits is taken into account) but in reality subsidises (because it is more profitable see point 4.3) the solicitors offices to enable them to exist increase resources available to carry out the social work legal aid aspects which at the moment are not provided at actual cost and the government is apparently looking to partly charity funded providers as an alternative.
  The result will simply be that there will be more pressure to increase the monies payable from the Legal aid board for the "social" legal work which the government apparently wants to promote or the essential network of small and medium sized solicitors offices will simply close just as many did that didn't adapt when the free market was let loose on the conveyancing industry.
• I simply do not accept that the government does not have power to target to "priority" cases in fact a large percentage of time is presently spent on restricting legal aid and if they truly wanted to the government has the power to relax the controls in the areas that they say they want to encourage indeed the two areas quoted remain very restricted there is no legal aid for tribunals and until such procedures have been exhausted Judicial Review is not a matter for consideration. As to housing it remains one of the most restricted and controlled areas for legal aid. Unless there is a clear point of law it is very difficult to obtain legal aid to respond to for example possession proceedings.

• Deliver legal aid through contracts, to provide the right help in the right place at a price which delivers good value for money.
  In future, all legal aid work, whether civil or criminal cases, will be restricted to providers of legal services who have a contract with the Legal Aid Board. This will allow better control through the Board agreeing the price to be paid in advance for the majority of cases. Contracting will allow the Government to get the most for the money that is spent and to spend it on those cases which most need it.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Remove weak cases from the legal aid system by toughening the legal merits test so that only cases with a strong prospect of success are supported with taxpayers money.
  Too many weak cases are granted legal aid. The hopes of litigants are unrealistically raised, and the opposing party is exposed to unnecessary costs which they cannot recover. There should be a strong prospect of success before legal aid can be granted. The test should reflect the priority of different types of case, and take account of the need for the legal aid budget to deliver as much help as it can with the taxpayers' money it has to spend.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Develop a way of supporting cases which have a significant wider public interest but which might otherwise not be brought.
  There may be some cases where the benefit to the individual is small, or for some other reason the individual may not qualify for legal aid, but there is a significant wider public interest that the case be supported with public funds. The Government wishes to consider how this can be achieved.
• Establish a Community Legal Service
  The Community Legal Service will vary from area to area according to local needs. The principle will be to provide effective mechanisms to enable the socially excluded and economically disadvantaged to enforce the legal rights which substantially influence their lives, such as housing, welfare, consumer and employment rights.

• This is one of the fundamental areas which I believe has not been understood and is being ignored. There is a significant constitutional difference between the legal profession and say the medical profession. In a democracy it is entirely inappropriate for a state to directly control a legal profession, a citizen must be able to choose his legal advisor and not have him selected by the state the "contract" is with the client not with the government or its agency.
  There already are considerable controls in place restraining costs it is already recognised in the consultation paper that there is more lucrative work available see 1.11 and yet they do the work. Since the Legal Aid Board was created to administer legal aid in substitution to Law Society the have steadily taken steps to take control and yet the costs have apparently rapidly increased during the same period whether it is a coincidence or not it is the case that all the changes that have been introduced have clearly had little to no effect and what is now proposed is affecting the fundamental right of the citizen to choose.
  Indeed whilst we are only currently talking about civil legal I notice that in Sir Peter Middleton's report he was advocating competitive contracts being negotiated for the defence of the large "fraud" trials this I believe is an entirely inappropriate intervention in the citizen's right of choice it cannot be right to impose legal representatives on a citizen in such a manner. (And in criticising the defence costs has there been an open disclosure of the prosecution cost)
• The weak cases are already removed at a very early stage. The present proposals are apparently principally to remove Personal Injury Claims even though it is accepted in this paper that these claims have high success rate see 4.3 . Percentage of success rates have to be highly subjective. If matters were so certain as to the outcome there wouldn't be any litigation at all. The suggestion that the most successful and cost effective part of the legal aid system should be removed to strengthen the rest of the system is simply illogical. Indeed to apply the test literally might mean that having removed the most effective part of the system the rest should go on the basis that it would not be likely to achieve a high prospect of success. However it is not necessarily appropriate to measure matters on the basis of who may may not "win" often the best and most cost effective result is a compromise.
  The short question is what are the precise statistics of the cases which fall in the categories which are proposed for removal.
• There are plenty of cases of principle and yours is of course the one that needs to be aired if you happen to be involved.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• As to a community legal service what is proposed is a state legal service by another name supported in part by charity. This is not new there have been for many years legal advice centres but the simple fact is that they cannot survive even with receipts form the "Green Form System" (Sorry Claim 10) and have to have a subsidy from either local authorities or elsewhere. In simple terms the payments for doing nothing but "social welfare " legal work simply are inadequate to pay the overheads of the provision let alone make a sufficient profit to make a living.. Accordingly if you wish to set up a free standing service to provide for the bottomless pit of "social welfare" legal work then it will cost a fortune and it makes no sense to remove the element that subsidises the system, provides a "profit" for the government and provides justice for the citizen.

The reference is made to a "modern" system as if the present system is something old and out of date. There is also reference elsewhere to the Legal aid scheme being 50 years old. In fact in the scheme of things 50 years is an insignificant time scale indeed it is not even a lifetime it is in fact still a revolutionary system. The suggestion is to take it away and leave everything to the market. Commercial interests are not going to support anything unless there is a financial gain and the financially strongest will have the strongest clout. They are not interested in the fine words "of justice for all" indeed there is I believe a degree of resentment that the citizen with legal aid can actually take the might of the huge corporations on.

But if you make the lawyers more financially involved in the case to the extent that the food that they eat depends on the outcome (early or late) you'll place them in conflict with their own clients. To use the phrase "extending access to justice" assumes that the proposals will do so the question I ask is HOW?? The Law society and other groups appear to believe it will but I remain unconvinced and would be interested if somebody could provide a logical explanation of the mechanics of how such a conclusion can be reached as opposed to a statement which in a self fulfilling manner simply states the conclusion which happens to mean the government through its Legal aid board agency simply ceases to be involved (although I believe to the detriment of the state)

The closing date for this consultation papers the 30th April i.e. two months to the middle of the year which is of course the summer one assumes that before rushing into such radical proposals the government will consider the responses seriously.

Its nice to know that solicitors are not totally rascally but no matter how much you might want to do work free you still have to live and pay for your staff at the end of the day unless you have a private income you simply cannot be a charity unless you have a private income and huge resources to pay your overheads.

This is clearly a significant risk if you start messing about with the ancient doctrines of Maintenance and Champerty They do not exist for nothing.

Again there is a claimed conclusion ("That is what our reforms will deliver") with no apparent explanation as to how. On the contrary the minute the lawyer is more dependent personally than his client he ceases to be impartial. If clients don't want to be sucked into heart rending litigation why is it believed it is any easier for the lawyer In fact it is no fun for anybody certainly so far as anyone who is acting for a "human client" as opposed to an "abstract corporation" especially as the unique problem of the vulnerability of Legal aid lawyers has been judicially noticed in relation to the introduction of wasted costs orders (see Ridehalge v Horsefield etc.)

Noted

I would hope and wish that this response is published to the widest possible audience and I am more than happy that my name and identity be disclosed.

If you strip away the catchy phrase "no win no fee" what do you have. A policy which is "passing the buck" to lawyers to provide the people with a justice system against huge multinational corporations which even the government wants to shy away from. There is no sharing of risk its a "give away something for nothing" marketing exercise but will not provide justice.

Who decides how to set the % risk or is that something which will be hawked round on a competitive tendering basis.

The simple truth is the lawyers even the biggest do not have the resources to fight the large corporations especially with the retention of the insurance backed costs following the event system (a situation which does not subsist in America where a lot of the culture comes from).

The one good thing about the introduction of conditional fees is that the defendant can't avoid paying the costs of the successful Plaintiff because his lawyer has not secured a contract creating a liability upon a possible loss that the citizen Plaintiff simply does not have the ability to pay but his multinational corporate opponent can easily pay (the effects of the indemnity principle)

Note I recognise that much of the consultation paper is written in the style of a press handout which involves simple impressionable "sound bite" concepts as opposed to detailed analysis which are media attractive and I am trying to respond in a similar manner but the present point is technical and not immediately obvious however it needs to be acknowledged.

The assessment of the likelihood of success is a highly subjective matter and as the amount at risk increases the ability to argue without resistance reduces.

After all if everything was so certain there would not be any litigation in the first place.

By way of example I recently acted by a client of moderate means who bought a modern house less than 20 years old on a housing estate with the aid of a mortgage from a large household name lender who arranged for the insurance and the survey (at the client's expense) in order to protect their security and when it became apparent to a purchaser's surveyor at the time of a prospective sale that there was a substantial slope (about 4.5") the insurers reaction was to stall and argue it was old movement and it must have been obvious at the time of the purchase about 5 years earlier and when this was put to the surveyors they said it wasn't obvious and the substantial movement all took place after the purchase. What was certain was that the client had not done anything wrong at the time of the purchase he had a survey and he had subsidence insurance. In fact the prospects of success from somebody from the clients view point in simple terms appeared to excellent but that did not stop the pressure of litigation and argument not to result in the client losing his employment and relying upon legal aid which eventually meant, that as there was no possibility whatsoever of any citizen funding a 10 day trial with numerous experts arguing what the cause of the problem was, he couldn't take up employment until the case was settled by which time the combined costs of the lawyers and experts for all three parties were about three times more than the value of the claim being about the value of the house.

The possibility of finding a lawyer to support litigation of this type through to the end without the support of legal aid is virtually nil. This is not an isolated problem in fact it is the reason why legal aid was introduced in the first place it has had the underwriting support of legal aid and having succeeded against both defendants the government will get all their money back.

As to the insurance point I have already indicated how these insurance schemes actually have the potential of increasing the vulnerability of citizen plaintiff lawyers see 1.6

Whilst there is an indication that conditional fees have been introduced there has not been an explanation as to why they were not allowed in the first place and indeed were actually a criminal offence until relatively recently.

Basically as I understand the position it was felt the common law was set up to prevent the courts being swamped with arguments which were abstract and but remained arguable and meant that opponents were put to the trouble of responding to such arguments or alternatively paying up enabling lawyers and others to profit from semantic debates.

This is arguably one of the worst problems with the American system in that costs do not follow the event and the result is a highly litigious society which is certainly not cheap.

If however you allow open conditional fees with the retention of costs risks to prevent and explosion of unwarranted cases you risk the danger that the rich and powerful will have all the power and the access to justice for the ordinary citizen will be lost.

It is clearly impossible to have a "payment by results" system where money is not the issue and the results are probably a compromise anyway.

All these statistics show is the number of policies which have been taken up for cases which would probably have been run without policies if they were not available see 1.6 ante

Why is it clear that they are an avenue to justice which has not existed before. There has been no reason why lawyers since they have been allowed could not have proceeded with all their cases on such a basis and gained the "success fee" enhancement which is apparently so attractive that it will make lawyers provide such improved access to justice but all that has happened is that those who can't now have the benefit of legal aid because of the reduction in the scope have sensibly taken the precaution of taking out the costs protection insurance.

Where is the increased access. The only highly technical advantage is that the unsuccessful defendants can't now argue they don't have to pay their opponents costs because the terms of engagement of the successful Plaintiff lawyer were not clearly established and I don't believe it is necessary to bring in conditional fees to stamp out such an in appropriate practice.

The reality has been for years many plaintiff lawyers have operated on the basis of seeking payments on account of disbursements only and running the risk (whatever contractual position) of not actually being paid if the case was lost because it is simply impossible to receive monies from those who do not have it to pay you.

As matters have progressed in recent years it has become more and more necessary to establish the precise terms of engagement in writing including the provision of the so called highly complicated "client care letter" which in truth is in reality a "solicitor protection letter". But the side effect has been that the clients are clearly frightened of taking on legal costs that they simply cannot afford and if they don't the "failed defendants" start to want to look at the "client care letter" to avoid paying up.

This is not a fair exchange for the removal of legal aid and will not increase access to justice.

Certainly it will do nothing to increase access for the consumer quality controls mentioned there is still no money in those cases anyway and they generally fall in the "small claims" category anyway so that there will be no costs paid anyway. These matters are currently dealt with by the Local Authority trading standards departments whenever there is any merit.

The short answer is that I strongly believe that apart from preventing "failed defendants" from avoiding payment of the Plaintiff conditional fees should not be introduced in any litigation at all but certainly it is impossible where there is no money involvement and where the measure of success cannot be measured on a simple win or lose basis as often it is a matter of compromise.

owed; and, if so, why would these proceedings not be suitable for conditional fee agreements?

The proportion of the fee charged is not the only way that a lawyer is potentially in conflict with his client. If he has a huge overdraft and is about to go bankrupt he may just be prepared to settle the case early for a lower sum on the basis that his opponent pays all the costs which might with or without success fee be a significant sum but leave the Plaintiff client with very little. This is a particular problem (but by no means the only example) when dealing with multiparty group actions where the plaintiff lawyer representing numerous parties may settle each individual clients claim for very little in the hands of the actual client but receive in his hands considerable costs (he being one lawyer or firm there being perhaps thousands of citizen plaintiffs). In other words sell his clients out.

Well its nice to know that lawyers are not all bad and that the basic opening (factually incorrect) analysis at para 1.3 ante of a picture that the present system is driven by the self interests of lawyers is not wholly a true one.

In fact all the policies show is that rather than place there clients at risk the lawyers have advised of a way to obtain protection against a potential risk and have placed themselves in arguably a worse position. These cases would I believe have progressed anyway with or without the policy.

The simple truth is that Plaintiff lawyers generally have "citizen clients" who they won't have if they do not produce results (not necessarily purely financial).

See 2.7 and 2.8 ante

See 2.7 and 2.8 ante

This passage I believe demonstrates a significant cultural problem and shows that it appears to follow the principle that everything is measured in self gain and monetary terms. The reference to insurance and banking industries demonstrates I believe a view of a commission based view point.

I do not believe that the only measure of a justice system can be monetary but if it is the financially mighty will remain on top.

Since apparently legal aid is going all monetary litigation is going to be funded by contingency fees of one type or another (either with partial payments on account or not) therefore in the long run either the other side will pay all the costs including the insurance and the success fee directly or the damages will apparently go up as in America.

I find it amazing that there is a suggestion that the concept of conditional fees is apparently suggested as the means of support for defendants who have not chosen to be sued are likely to be poor and will have to find a lawyer to stick his neck out to protect them.

The success fee is apparently still going to be controlled by taxation see point 2.10 main paper (an archaic system which is in need of desperate modernisation to save resources and costs) and surely the whole system will be subject to " market forces" if there is a complaint after the event then on the basis that costs follow the event the losing defendant can argue the success fee as no doubt it will the rest of the fees.

You mean that the rest of the inter parte fees are not going to be argued about. I wish!!!. And in any event I thought the success fee was a % of the rest of the fees which may have to assessed (taxed) if they cannot be agreed.

As I have said I believe it will happen anyway because the level of damages will with time increase to cover the extra fees.

There shouldn't be conditional fees at all.

If they exist yes. (They are now see 1.3 and so why shouldn't they in the future)

Why does there need to be a change to improve the position of the opponent even more.

The short answer is that the losing party will no doubt be arguing the liability to pay the main costs and so he might as well continue to argue as he does now the existing success fee.

There needs to be a radical improvement to the taxation system the over meticulous investigation and archaic bills need to be brought into the 20^th century. The first step would be to have a simple standardised spreadsheet calculated bill.

• the system is out of date;
  
• it costs too much;
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• it covers only a small percentage of the population
  
• it can be unfair in its effect on those who are sued by those helped with legal aid; and
  
  
  
  
• it is not flexible enough to allow the Government to target help in priority areas.

• Nothing can and will stand still it is still a revolutionary system and to restrict its scope is not modernisation it is its destruction
• It always will whatever is paid. In fact it is extremely good value because the true cost of the social welfare element is not covered as it is cross subsidised by other legal work (it would cost far more as a free standing service because of the basic overhead charges) and the bit that is suggested to be removed is the bit that potentially makes a profit.
• Yes there is a strong case for extending the access particularly in the area which is suggested should be removed.
• It can be but they should be more sensible and accept there is a real liability early. Generally the opponents in money claims are multinational insurance companies and the purpose is to make the system fairer for the citizen.
• The proposals will not change the situation it will make matters worse.

They will be even more amazed by the proposals for change which in fact is going to strike at the fundamental purpose of the system that is to enable the citizen to take on huge multinational corporations with little to no expense to the state, leaving the state with the rump of "social legal work" to fund without any support of cross subsidised work.

The statistics are short on details as I have already indicated at para 1.4 and the increase appears to have grown exponentially since the legal aid board took over administration of the system and has tried progressively to take more central control. But how much of the increase comes from increased burdens because of for example the extensive increase in family law work arising out of social changes and greater child care awareness which also produced the Children Act or the acknowledged need to provide payments on account to the legal profession if the if it wasn't going to die due to cash flow problems arising out of he need to have huge amounts of working to capital to support a business that takes years to be paid (lawyers do not have a vested interest in delay)

It is true that the proportion of the population benefiting from assistance has been reduced but that has been due directly to government policy for example because of the removal of a contribution system from the "Green Form Scheme" this has meant that only those who are on benefits or close to it can have the benefit of such advice and such a limitation was bound to reduce the number of acts of assistance but not necessarily the value of such acts.

At the same time the rates of payment to lawyers have simply been frozen for two years and even then the levels of increase have been nowhere near the rates of inflation or the levels of increase in overheads.

The legal profession is in such a poor state that recently when I considered the suitability of taking on a trainee I received in excess of 120 enquiries and I did not even advertise but simply indicated to the relevant training establishments that there was a possible place available.

The first point is that the legal aid system is now so rigorously controlled and limited it actually contributes to the costs problem because the huge multinational insurance company opponents appear to believe they can beat the system and the constant need to obtain approval at every stage of the proceedings not only causes delay but also increases costs.

Surely the whole purpose of legal aid was to provide the citizen with the opportunity to pursue a case which he would not otherwise as a private individual have been able to take on if not what is it there for.

This passage illustrates the resentment that the legal aid system enables the citizen to take on huge multinational corporation and the truth is that if it is removed the lawyers will not be able to provide the citizen with that facility and the huge corporations will win by default not because they are right.

There are a number of other interesting factors in this passage firstly there is an acknowledgment that the money only cases which are proposed to be removed produce a "high success" rate which means they cost the government virtually nothing and if you add the benefit recovery the state actually makes a "profit".

I find it a bit rich that the large corporation usually multinational defendants claim they only pay because they are blackmailed if the cases are of doubtful merit (this being an inexact subjective statement) that does not mean they have no merit and the best way to avoid expenditure is to pay money in proportion to the extent of that merit as early as possible, not to drag matters out and use the policy holder premiums or shareholder monies on a campaign to "bank roll" the dispute

This is where the economic realities of the legal profession and how they affect legal aid funding are almost grasped but not quite appreciated.

It was appreciated and indeed predicted in the highest offices in the land that to let market forces loose on domestic conveyancing to the point where it no longer makes a realistic profit was bound to put pressure on the socially essential but basically non profit making element of the justice system.

It is still the case and will remain to be the case that this work is carried out by the network of small to medium sized solicitors firms up and down the country.

In rough terms I would say that before the destruction of the conveyancing business about two thirds of a solicitors income came from conveyancing and perhaps one third from citizen legal aid supported litigation. But the work load proportion was probably the other way round or possibly about 50/50.

However since basic overheads were about two thirds of income this meant if one only did conveyancing work one covered overheads and made nothing to live on. But if you only did litigation work there was not even enough money to support the cost of overheads. (You can see the difference between estate agents and solicitors estate agents charges are a lot higher but they have roughly the same overheads to provide the outlet and so with the conveyancing slump they have whilst in the hands of huge corporations made massive losses because the did not have any source of income which did not rely on the conveyancing market)

It therefore made no sense to let market forces loose on the conveyancing system (which the government had no involvement in but indirectly gained subsidised assistance from) because this was bound one way or another to push up the government funded "social legal aid" budget.

The government is now about to make the same mistake, only this time more directly. They are going to remove the purest element of the legal aid system which costs the government nothing and arguably makes a profit for the government leaving behind an inadequately funded "social legal aid" budget to fund and either the budget will go up or the network of lawyers offices providing the service will die.

There is no prospect in the immediate future of the conveyancing charges increasing to realistic levels even if the market was buoyant. And the government's attempts to introduce competitive tendering into a desperate high street solicitors market will not prevent the problem.

The question is why does the government want to remove this part of the system do they believe the whining of the large multinational defendants who make a rod for their own back in not making reasonable offers of settlement early so that resources are not wasted on heavy legal costs but are directed to the real problem.

I have tried to argue the position from the perspective of the citizen because no service is entitled to exist without a purpose and have been reluctant to refer to specific the economics of the legal profession as it appears one is only interested in one's self but if the finance is not there the service won't be.

By way of further illustration however I enclose copies of data base generated graphs showing the make up of my firm by reference to the number of cases and by reference to income as can be seen the P.I. element is by far the highest in source of income but not in number of cases similarly conveyancing still forms a high proportion of the business in terms of numbers but not so much in income.

I have included similar graphs for my own workload where the position is even more dramatic.

I appreciate that taking numbers of cases is not necessarily a complete measure because it doesn't measure the importance of each case or the necessary volume of work but it does illustrate that money only claims and in particular P.I. claims generate "the icing on the cake" which supports the rest of the "social legal aid work" But I'm not saying that the plaintiff lawyer is stretching cases out just to make more money. It is my belief it has been the defendant lawyers who have been primarily responsible.

The fact is that the element of the social legal aid scheme simply does not provide adequate income to support legal service outlets whether provided by amateurs or qualified lawyers.

It will do the opposite. If there is not enough money available to support the legal service outlets (solicitor offices or not) there will be no opportunity to provide any service and most of the time will be spent trying to stem the tide of increasing costs rather than actually addressing the problems the government says it wants to refocus on.

Sharing risks ????? No on the proposals the Plaintiff lawyers will take all the risk including an even worse risk re wasted costs it not being possible to prevent large corporations paying bills of their obstructive lawyers who have been ordered "to pay costs personally".

The playing field is not even and that is what legal aid has provided.

The claims are in fact simply not speculative there is a pre consideration procedure to assess the merits of legal aid support both legally and financially if the defendants were sensible they would not have the problems.

And it will deliver even less to fewer and fewer people if the present proposals are adopted solicitor offices will close or there will have to be more money paid for less service and probably both

An innovative solution to take something away???

Nobody believes in the status quo certainly not me and certainly not the great innovators and forward thinkers who set the system up in the first place.

There are practical improvements not least making the citizen have a direct interest and responsibility in the case by requiring modest contributions in all cases which would mean he would be even more motivated to ensure the lawyer he had instructed was providing a quality service.

If you are making changes in the present you can make a statement that this is modernisation???

It could in fact be going back wards a change is not necessarily an improvement simply because it is made and it is not necessarily a modernisation.

This is one of the areas where it is very hard to obtain legal aid because on the merits test the citizen is often simply wrong. It is also true that there has been trend to reduce the responsibilities of landlords which in some respects is regrettable but at the end of the day if the you are on the wrong side of a case you can't argue it. If the government wants to direct the legal aid into this area they will have to change the law in favour of the tenant to provide an actionable claim.

If housing resources are bad the money will have to come from somewhere to improve the housing and there is the argument that to waste money on litigation (save in a policing environment) may not be the best way of providing the resources.

You have to go through a long procedure of administrative appeals at tribunal level (without legal aid) before you can reach the stage of even starting a judicial review.

Who is going to help the poor to get through that long procedure.

Well there's a surprise!!!

How on earth was a citizen who had an actionable argument being sued by a large corporation going to find a lawyer to stick his neck out (funding his staff and overheads) and defend him on the basis of only being paid from the other party should the other party lose.

The citizen defendant didn't even choose to be sued in the first place.

If he is in a legal aid position he can't have much money under present rules and the question is what benefit will the opponent have in suing him? It can only generally be therefore cases where the citizen has perhaps a house which is either subject to a charge which is being pursued or could be made the subject of a charging order.

I have to admit this is an area where I have some difficulty in reconciling my libertarian position that everybody should be able to be do what the want without interference from the state or others with the need to ensure that there is proper control where it should exist.

Perhaps at this point it might be appropriate to provide a brief description of my own personal background.

I started out at the age of 17 having been perhaps less than motivated to academic study during adolescence as an office boy but because of my own family background (my father was a state school headmaster who was a by training linguist). I suddenly woke up and realised if I was going to retain my background I'd have to work.

I therefore studied a great deal in evenings and eventually qualified as a "five year man".

I am therefore very proud of having achieved the acknowledgment of qualification. I then worked for a number of firms of solicitors in Hinckley Leics., Coleshill Bham., Leicester, Stockport, Manchester and Winsford Cheshire all of which I retain the greatest respect for and I hope they respond in kind.

Eventually I commenced trading in January 1983 as a sole practitioner in Winsford Cheshire a town of between 35,000 & 40,000 in population which I have no particular connection to other than the fact I had been running a branch office (having been born in Hamburg Germany, my father coming from Bolton Lancs., my mother from Birmingham and I being brought up in Hinckley Leics.)

I had already 17 and 1/2 years experience in the law in 1983 when I started out but since then I have dealt with some interesting cases and continue to do so.

I have dealt with amongst many others:-

1. the repossession of a political party premises for the benefit of a public institution by way of peaceable reentry against the interests of a chargee.
2. a legally aided judicial review against the refusal of legal aid.
3. a legally aided defendant of a mareva injunction
4. several subsidence and heave civil actions
5. complex drug/chemical reaction claims

All of which have been successful and I have dealt with medical negligence matters with some success.

I also provide the usual non contentious services of landlord and tenant conveyancing and probate.

I am the archetypal general practitioner who provides a general service for a small/medium sized town.

I of course use the services of suitable counsel when appropriate.

My concern based on experience is that I question the motives of those who wish to restrict particular areas of work to particular groups it is usually in my experience because they want to limit it to themselves and create an exclusive club giving them an apparent "licence to print money" and they are afraid that there might be somebody with talent who actually might be better than them. It is not because they want to ensure the public are protected from inappropriate practices indeed in some cases the "licence" breeds inappropriate practices (e.g.. insolvency practitioners who charge for a voluntary arrangement that is doomed to failure and then when it fails they make the client bankrupt taking massive fees leaving the creditors with nothing and the client destitute)

I say therefore before such a restriction is proposed one should consider what is going to be gained and what is going to be lost and is it going to improve the access of the citizen to a remedy particularly in the provincial towns (as opposed to cities).

In any event all such restrictions must be based upon objective tests of obtaining proper and relevant examination based qualifications rather than then selection on the basis of the old boy net.

In short if the qualification to do the work is that of a solicitor (having passed the relevant impartial objective tests) then that should be enough. If however, additional tests are required then those would require to be taken. I wonder how this would be likely to reduce costs given that the general proposal elsewhere is to pass the legal aid budget on to those who are not legally qualified in an attempt to save costs.

I have already indicated why you cannot rely on the take up of costs protection insurance as a measure of the alleged success of conditional fees as they are nothing of the kind.

However I fail to see how a list of exclusions from the scope of legal aid can be placed under the heading "Targeting Legal Aid Provision" it is merely a negative list where is the positive act.

I suppose with perverse logic it could be argued that it is targeting away from legal aid.

• disputes about inheritance under a will or an intestacy;
• matters affecting the administration of a trust or the position of a trustee;
• matters relating to the position of directors of companies, restoring a company to the Register or dealing with the position of minority shareholders;
• matters affecting partnerships;
• matters before the Lands Tribunal;
• cases between landowners over a disputed boundary of adjacent property; and
• cases pursued in the course of a business.

The government aren't prepared to underwrite £2684. 00. see para 3.3 and why is it that "strong cases" cost so much. If they are strong why is there so much argument?

Yes in reality the costs are usually the same as the damages or in some cases more but the damages will have to go up as in America.

Which are the cases with wider public interest. All cases have a potential wide public interest indeed the Legal Aid System is of wide public interest although the general public do not appear to be aware of it, perhaps they will when it has gone and is the government going to remain happy funding actions against itself.

Well the government will have to get on with it as I understand the proposal is to remove P.I. legal aid apparently within about two months of the closure of the Consultation Paper and if it had not had second thoughts it would have gone by the end of March for all money claims.

What about a case where for example a local authority has installed playground equipment which causes injury to a child not necessarily significant injury (sufficient to justify a claim) but with potential to cause considerable injury on numerous others and the manufacturers would prefer not to settle because of the commercial damage or the use of old buses where the emergency exit door is of questionable standard and a child falls out of t