The Law Society has today launched an ‘Access to Justice’ campaign to defend the rule of law in an environment where legal advice is becoming more expensive and difficult to obtain.

The campaign’s key goals include raising public awareness of the help still available, and persuading policymakers to make changes to the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012. Chancery Lane will also support solicitors in making their products and services more accessible.

Writing in the Gazette, president Andrew Caplen (pictured) warns that there can be no effective rule of law ‘when we lack a fully accessible and affordable legal system’. He adds: ‘It is against that backdrop – 600,000 people losing access to civil legal aid, the effects of [Jackson] and the threat to criminal legal aid – that we are launching our campaign”.