The same Gazette article mentioned below also considers the additional chaos likely to follow from the Bar declining to sign VHCC contracts, as they must do by next week.
Now we have only limited contact with Chambers. We have only really done any work with one set down the years – No 6 in Leeds. They occasionally have the pleasure of being thoroughly depressed by my take on the future for Legal Aid and the Bar. We also have more regular and very useful information exchanges with their Practice Director, Tim Collins. (Long term friend of JRS and well know legal typing error Steven Switlaski also resides there nowadays).
They are, in my view, pretty clued up and were certainly the best prepared set we came across when going through the tortuous VHCC BVT process last year. Their members were consequently highly successful as a result.
It is therefore of some import that their successful applicants are, individually, about to decline to contract with the LSC. If you click on the blue “continue reading” link below you can read Tim’s thoughtful explanation of their reasoning:
Nearly all our criminal
