Lawyers’ groups have come together in an informal coalition to lobby the government over its legal aid and civil costs reforms, which they claim will ‘threaten the entire legal advice network’.

Groups including the Law Society, Bar Council, Legal Action Group, the Legal Aid Practitioners Group, the Immigration Law Practitioners Association and the Advice Services Alliance, will work together raise concerns over the impact the reforms will have on access to justice.

They have called on lawyers to contact their local MPs over the summer and show them their firm’s accounts to demonstrate the scale of the financial challenge faced by them.

A Law Society spokesman said: ‘The scope and fee cuts threaten the entire legal advice network. There is already concern that fee rates are not sufficient to keep people in business, especially after the recent collapse of Law For All.

‘This is not about lawyers crying wolf, it’s about showing the politicians that legal aid work is just not going to be viable and there will be no one to help their constituents.

‘It is pointless having the right to legal advice if there is no one there to provide the service, and that is what these cuts will lead to.'

As well as opposing the scope and fee cuts, the groups will also focus on the removal of clause 12 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill, which introduces a means test for police station advice, and the civil costs reforms in part 2 of the bill, which lawyers say will make it harder for ordinary people to take cases to court.