The Legal Services Commission can expect a ‘nationwide’ challenge to the lawfulness of its recent tenders, according to an alliance of 12 family firms which plan to take the fight to the agency.

The firms, based in London, Exeter and Hull, all failed to get new contracts. They have combined to seek a judicial review of the family tender exercise, which saw the number of firms with contracts slashed by 46%.

A pre-action letter, sent this week to the LSC’s chief executive Carolyn Downs and seen by the Gazette, says they are also ‘liaising’ with 31 firms in the north-east and ‘seeking to coordinate what we anticipate is likely to become a nationwide action or series of actions’.

The move comes hot on the heels of similar challenges by the Law Society and Birmingham housing specialists The Community Law Partnership.

Led by Derek Reynolds, a solicitor at London firm Children & Families Law Firm, the 12 firms claim the tendering process was ‘unlawful’ and that therefore the decision not to award them contracts was also ‘unlawful’.

They ask the LSC to suspend the completion of the tendering process and extend the current contracts until the conclusion of any negotiation, comprehensive review or litigation. If it does not do so, they intend to seek a declaration from the court that the process was unlawful and ask for the outcome of the tender to be quashed.

The firms claim the selection and scoring criteria adopted were arbitrary and irrational, and that the tendering process breached The Public Contracts Regulations 2006 in that is was discriminatory, lacked transparency and failed to accord equal treatment to the different firms and organisations which submitted bids.

The pre-action letter states that the LSC’s process ‘was wholly inconsistent with its own policy’ and says ‘the individual decisions were not only irrational but were also disproportionate’.

The other 11 firms included in the action are: London firms Barnet Family Law, Creighton & Partners, Dundons, Dunning & Co, IBB, Lomax Lloyd-Jones & Co and Wainwright & Cummings; Hull firms Burstalls and Stamps Family Solicitors; and Exeter firms Cartridges and Ford Simey.