Some 31 firms across the north-east have joined forces in a bid to launch a High Court challenge to the Legal Services Commission’s recent family tender process, the Gazette has learned.

The group of firms in Teesside, Durham and Newcastle, led by Helen Scourfield, associate at Middlesbrough firm David Scourfield, and Jonathan Woodhouse, partner at Freers in Middlesbrough, has instructed counsel to advise on the potential for a judicial review of the tender exercise.

The group includes a mix of firms that did and did not win contracts.

Meanwhile, evidence from lawyers’ groups has suggested that the tender outcome, which reduced the number of firms with family legal aid contracts by 46%, has created ‘advice deserts’ in some areas, with the biggest problems in Cornwall, Northumbria and urban areas of Wales.

Even practices that were successful have claimed that there are not enough firms to meet demand in some areas.

Sarah Clubley, solicitor at Hull firm Williamsons, which won a contract, said: ‘There are seven firms in our area with contracts, but we do a lot of big care cases and there are not enough firms to ensure everyone has access to a lawyer.’

The Legal Aid Practitioners Group said it has asked the House of Commons’ Justice Committee to convene as a matter of urgency to examine the problem.

However, Hugh Barrett, the LSC’s executive director for commissioning, told the Gazette this week that there will be no review of the process until all appeals have been determined. He said he was ‘confident’ of a ‘good outcome’ at the end.

Barrett said the LSC is still considering representations from some of the 785 unsuccessful bidders who appealed against decisions in all the civil tenders.

He added that the LSC will take ‘appropriate action’ to rectify any problems, which might include reallocating work from firms unable to deliver the contracts offered.

Barrett said the LSC would publish the full results of all the civil tenders in mid-September.

The Gazette has also learned that the head of the family courts, Lord Justice Wall, has warned LSC chief executive Carolyn Downs in a letter that he has been ‘inundated’ by family judges expressing serious concerns over the outcome of the family legal aid tender.

Wall quoted one judge in Wales who expressed alarm at the ‘horrendous prospect of inexperienced practitioners taking over this heavy work’, and warned of a potential rise in litigants in person.

Law Society chief executive Desmond Hudson has also written to Downs urging her to suspend the outcome of the tender and conduct an ‘urgent but thorough public evaluation of the result to ensure proper access to justice’.

See lawgazette.co.uk/news for more.