Govt must support legal aid alternatives, experts claim

With the legal aid, sentencing and punishment of offenders bill likely to reduce provisions for free legal services, experts are saying that the government must support more creative means of giving access to justice.

Writing in the Guardian, chairman of the Bar Peter Lodder discussed the merits of a contingent legal aid fund (CLAF) and declared that the government must take an active role in any such policy to ensure effective access to justice for the more disadvantaged members of society.

Government revisions to legal aid provisions will mean that few will qualify for legal aid in the UK and many will have to fund litigation themselves.

Consequently, poorer members of society will often refrain from bringing cases to court, afraid of financial pressures.

According to Mr Lodder, this will change the balance of litigation and damage justice in Britain.

However, CLAF - a pooled fund to support damages claims, with successful claimants paying a proportion of awards to the fund - could be a way forward to give disadvantaged members of society access to legal remedies.

However, in order for the scheme to work, "government should help voluntary bodies to come forward on a not-for-profit basis by confirming that their CLAFs would not face adverse costs orders, or at least should benefit from qualified one-way costs shifting", Mr Lodder writes.

Published by Phil Hammond