UK lawyers are planning a full-day walkout over legal aid cuts on Friday 7 March. Last month lawyers staged a half-day boycott of hearings at court buildings for the first time ever to highlight their opposition to the Ministry of Justice’s proposals for £220m of cuts to the annual legal aid budget.
The protest planned for 7 March will last all day and will involve barristers abandoning their cases and refusing to cover other dropped cases. The walkout is a result of an recent unproductive meeting between justice secretary Chris Grayling and criminal solicitors. Lawyers say successive fee reductions since 1997 amount to cuts of 40% of their income.
London Criminal Courts Solicitor’s Association (LCCSA) president Nicola Hill said, “The Ministry of Justice just isn’t listening. We have shown that these cuts aren’t necessary and the savings will happen naturally from falling crime and improving efficiencies in the courts. But the government shows no signs of hearing that evidence. Under the proposed rates, solicitors will be paid so little they won’t be able to prepare cases to the required standards, leaving their clients, whose liberty, families and livelihoods are at stake, with second and third rate representation.”
Click here to read an article in the Guardian about the issue.
Readers may recall that in the last Bulletin it was reported that legal charity the Public Law Project have been granted permission to challenge the introduction of a residence test for legal aid.