How can I summarise a recent LAA decision? Howabout… Guidance is not as important as Contract (unless we say so). When you read our published guidance do not rely upon it. Read it with the eyes of a professional copy-reader being especially alert for obvious drafting errors. When you spot an obvious drafting error, substitute […]
It appears that the correspondence quoted from regarding forthcoming CM “reject rate” visits is standard. That means that one normally sensible CM has not gone mad and/or bad.
If you missed this over the weekend it suggests that Legal Aid cuts are resulting in “a significant breakdown in criminal justice system” and that they “may not be saving taxpayers any money at all”. Who’d have thunk it?
Friend of this site Tim Collins, at No 6 Chambers in Leeds, has patiently been digging for the statistical basis of PCT for some time now. To no avail. In particular he has doggedly been seeking some rational, evidential basis to justify the continued operation of the Public Defenders Service (PDS). If you remember it […]
I was tempted to post something by either First Aid Kit or Dark, Dark, Dark, both of whom we have seen recently and were excellent. We have however not done something loud and rocky for a while. So, if you like John McGeogh era Siouxsie and the Banshees you will love this from Savages
We have been banging the drum about ECF recently and seem not to be alone. Previously we linked to a Public Law Project article on the issue and now Pink Tape (@Familoo if you do Twitter) has joined in looking at the underlying statistics following and FoI request. Go read the whole, excellent, article. If […]
We ran our LASPO FAQ course for a live audience this morning confirming that the LAA online training and guidance materials have failed to hit the spot. In this case the misunderstandings were to the firm’s detriment not the other way round. This is not an uncommon experience in our phone enquiry experience especially the […]
Dear all The SRA are once again requiring firms to conduct a diversity survey. Firms do not have any choice in the matter. Firms are required to collect, report and, this time, publish workforce diversity data about the make-up of their workforce. This time the SRA is not providing an online survey tool for staff […]
I am dusting off an old webinar for an in-house training session tomorrow. It is the LASPO FAQ one and Helen is currently having a listen to the recording to find out what some of the more obscure references mean – “Captain Corelli’s Mandolin” anybody? Just to say we have recordings of past courses for […]
We get calls about cases which fall outside the scope of LASPO most days now. Like yesterday they invariably involve the type of issues, faced by vulnerable clients, for which Legal Aid was envisaged. Equally invariably there is no easily realsiable loophole. Result? – you guys end up doing more and more pro bono representation. […]