Solicitor fears legal aid system 'collapse'

10:17am Thursday 25th October 2007

Comments (0)   Have your say »

A SOLICITOR has hit out at a system which, he says, has forced his firm to give up legally-aided family work at its Salisbury office.

Tim Bishop, senior partner of Bonallack & Bishop of Salisbury, Amesbury and Andover, says he is sad he has had to make the decision and believes other firms will follow.

His own firm plans to give up family legal aid work at its Amesbury and Andover offices by next summer.

And he predicts the entire legal aid system could soon collapse.

"Just four years ago there were five firms willing to take on family legal aid cases in Salisbury - now there are just two," he said.

"My firm has always been committed to helping the disadvantaged and vulnerable by doing a variety of legal aid work.

"However, the Government has consistently refused to increase legal aid pay rates for the last eight years and introduced new fixed fee family payments on October 1, which substantially reduce those rates of pay.

"It is not that solicitors are greedy, but that the new proposed rates are simply unprofitable."

He said reductions of up to 30 per cent in rates of legal aid pay, which were well below what solicitors charged private clients, coupled with the costs of running a solicitors' practice increasing each year was "an impossible business proposition".

"Solicitors have for many years effectively used their other profitable work to subsidise legal aid," he continued.

"The new proposed rates will simply lead to many more solicitors giving up huge areas of legal aid work, and other firms who are unable to replace legally-aided work with privately-paying clients, as we have done, will go out of business.

"I predict the entire legal aid system is likely to collapse within the next few years."

He likened the situation to that of, what he calls, "the Government's mishandling of NHS dentists".

"This will inevitably lead to injustice and harm to the very vulnerable people the Government claims to care about, and will heighten pressure on the courts as they have to deal with increasing numbers of unrepresented clients," he said.

"I have been proud to be a specialist childcare lawyer acting for parents, children in care and social services for many years but, sadly, I can no longer take on any new legally-aided childcare cases and am running my caseload down."

• The firm is reassuring the public it continues to take legally-aided criminal work.