‘There can be no equal justice where the kind of trial a man gets depends on the amount of money he has.’ So said US Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black in 1964. More than 45 years later we are still fighting to ensure access to justice for all.

The Law Society is committed to the belief that the rule of law cannot properly exist without access to justice for every citizen. We were committed to that principle 60 years ago when we established the legal aid system and we remain committed to that today.

That is why we decided to take action against the Legal Services Commission over the recent outcome of the family legal aid tender round, which will see the number of firms assigned to family law almost halved.

Cuts to specialist law firms who provide family legal aid work will cause further distress for families already under extreme pressure. Taking action means that the Law Society is acting in the interests of those thousands of families who will be denied access to justice.

As lawyers we are bonded by our shared sense of duty to uphold the rule of law, which is why I know that many legal professionals share our concerns.

Disruption to services has already started – many law firms are beginning to close, and skilled and experienced staff are beginning to leave the sector. This is a serious threat to the future provision of legal aid and the access to justice principle.

We remain extremely disappointed that the LSC refused to acknowledge the detrimental effect that this will have on families, especially since they had not anticipated that the tender round would produce this result. The LSC should have stopped to consider the consequences of its actions before pushing ahead and cutting vital services.

It says its intention was to improve the quality of the service, yet the effect of the process has been to decimate the most valuable asset the system possesses – highly skilled and committed solicitors, and their staff, who have dedicated their working lives to this area of practice, despite low pay and uncertainty.

These changes are particularly unfortunate coming, as they do, in the face of expected announcements about cuts to public expenditure, which we have to expect may well include cuts to the provision of legal aid.

Within family law, the priority area is likely to be public law proceedings. The process that the LSC has followed risks having the effect of giving contracts to firms that are being encouraged to expand their private law family work at the expense of the very specialists who undertake the public law work that the LSC will most need to commission.

I am pleased to say that the High Court heard our arguments last week and granted us an expedited hearing in relation to our application for a judicial review into the LSC’s issuing of family law tenders. The court has also permitted an interested party to give one hour’s oral evidence on behalf of firms that have lost contracts.

The hearing will be heard on Tuesday 21 September and the judgment is expected to be delivered on Friday 24 September. The court also ordered that the new LSC family law contracts will not be issued before the case is heard, though the LSC work on appeals and verification will continue. The LSC has also agreed that existing civil contracts will be extended by one month until 14 November.

Our action is focused only on the family tender exercise. We believe that the LSC can restrict the short contract extension to family law only. The LSC has agreed that it will release a further one-twelfth of the matter starts available under the existing contract for any contracts extended and that it will be as flexible as possible within the terms of the existing contract to meet the requirements of individual firms who had hoped to expand under the new system.

The Law Society will continue to meet the LSC to try to resolve the problems caused by the procurement process. We remain dedicated to ensuring that no matter who you are, you have the same access to justice as the next person.

Linda Lee is president of the Law Society