Law firm owners with criminal legal aid contracts are to set up their own representative body with a view to becoming a statutory consultee, the Gazette has learned.
Firm owners who met on Tuesday to discuss next steps should the government’s full response to the Bellamy review, expected later this month, be unsatisfactory decided to create a formal structure, likely to be known as the Criminal Legal Aid Contractors Association. The association would, on behalf of members, engage with the Ministry of Justice and Legal Aid Agency in relation to the terms of future criminal legal aid contracts.
The revelation follows a separate move towards establishing a trade union for criminal legal aid lawyers. At Tuesday’s meeting, the Criminal Law Solicitors Association announced that it will commission advice from counsel on the legal position and practical options for setting up such a body.
Jan Matthews, managing partner of Reeds Solicitors, stressed to the Gazette that the Criminal Legal Aid Contractors Association will be separate to what the CLSA is looking into and will not be a trade union. The association will operate like a trade association and represent firms of all sizes, focusing on their common goals, he said.
Matthews said: ‘The reason why we’re doing it is because there is no other body that speaks solely for those individuals who sign up to the contract.’ As well as seeking to secure a seat at the negotiating table, the new association hopes to become a statutory consultee.
On setting up a new association given the existence of the Law Society, the representative body for solicitors, and practitioner groups such as the CLSA, Matthews said: ‘You cannot represent firms and individuals. What the business might need and what the employee might need, you cannot group all of these together because they have different requirements. Running a business to some degree is finding the right compromise between what the business needs and what the employees need.’
Matthews hopes the new association will be up and running next year.
More than 150 firms of all sizes were represented at Tuesday’s meeting, who want to see the lord chancellor implement the minimum recommendations made by the Bellamy review, namely a 15% uplift on all criminal legal aid fees, including the litigators graduated fee scheme and prison law.
Should the government fail to implement this minimum recommendation, firm owners believe they will have no choice but to stop doing work that is financially unsustainable for their practice.
The Law Society said the government's 'baffling' stance on criminal legal aid was pushing the solicitor profession towards disruptive action.
Society president Lubna Shuja said: 'An escalation of action by law firm owners is near inevitable given the government’s baffling refusal to implement our demands for the bare minimum 15% increase for criminal defence solicitors, which was recommended by their own review.
'The government caved in to barrister strike action but is refusing to give parity to solicitors who kept the wheels of justice turning during that strike. This has angered and galvanised the solicitor profession. Some criminal law solicitors are now considering forming a union to organise direct action. They have seen that this government does not listen to reason and that direct action gets results.'
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