The Legal Services Commission could face a judicial review of the process and selection criteria used in the recent tender exercise for its new family contract.

A family solicitor who did not want to be identified told the Gazette he has got the support of ‘a number’ of firms who believe the bidding process and selection criteria used by the LSC to score firms who have applied for a contract are unfair.

He said: ‘There are specific elements of unfairness in the scoring of bids, which favour some specialisms over others.’ The solicitor is currently in the process of instructing counsel to advise on the chances of success.

In particular, the solicitor raised concerns about the weighting attached to domestic violence, which had not been flagged up to firms, and which would prejudice firms without a specialist in that area.

He said the selection criteria favour firms that do both public and private law work, which firms were not made aware of before the bid round.

The solicitor claimed the process itself was flawed, as there was no mechanism for the LSC to check the veracity of bids, leaving the potential for firms to submit inaccurate details of their supervisor ratios or the number of full-time employees, with the aim of bolstering their bids.

The LSC said it was unable to comment.