Nearly a third of ‘trusted’ immigration firms could face closure following the outcome of the Legal Services Commission’s bid round last week, solicitors’ groups have warned.

Lawyers also foresaw more bad news ahead for civil legal aid practices as firms await the ‘crunch date’ of the family and social welfare tender result, expected tomorrow and predicted by some to be ‘the blackest day in legal aid history’.

Applicants for immigration and asylum contracts were notified of the result of the tender exercise last week. Contracts were awarded to 252 of the 410 individual offices that bid, with 73% of firms winning some work.

Legal Aid Practitioners Group director Carol Storer said: ‘That’s almost 30% of firms who haven’t got contracts. And many others received contracts for such small volumes of work it may not be viable for them to continue. Almost a third of trusted providers may be out of the game by October.’

Storer said the LSC’s selection criteria were not robust enough and had failed to recognise quality providers. She said the way matter starts were allocated had encouraged solicitors to overbid for work despite LSC efforts to prevent this, and this had distorted the outcome.

Alison Harvey, general secretary of the Immigration Law Practitioners Association, said the outcome of the process would cause firms to question whether they will still do legal aid work.

Storer also predicted that tomorrow’s expected outcome of the tender for family and social welfare work would cause further woe for civil legal aid firms.

She said: ‘That will be the blackest day in legal aid history. It will be the crunch date for many firms and seal their fate following the accumulation of the previous outcomes [in the immigration and mental health bids]. It could change the face of legal aid provision across the country.’

Law Society head of legal aid Richard Miller said that as there had been a high number of competitive bids, there will be firms that lose out in most areas.

An LSC spokesman said the immigration and asylum tender process had been robust and transparent, and would ensure high quality advice for clients. He said the tender had been oversubscribed but the number of cases had not been cut.