Legal aid minister Jonathan Djanogly has announced plans to scrap a £2.6 million per year training contract grant scheme. Since the scheme began in 2002 more than 750 trainees have benefited from grants of over £20,000 each to help cover their training fees and salary. The Legal Services Commission gave the grants to legal aid firms to allow them to fund 100% of the tuition fees of the Professional Skills Course, and to contribute towards Legal Practice Course fees and the trainee’s salary for the two years of their training contract.

The Ministry of Justice claims that the cut is an important cost-saving measure. Their spokesman said that when the scheme was introduced, financial inducements were needed to attract more young lawyers into the legal aid market, but now there are too many lawyers chasing too little work. “The grant scheme was a laudable idea, but the long-term future of legal aid is still assured, with enough young lawyers continuing to enter the profession,” he said. Those whose training is already being funded will be unaffected.

The decision has provoked anger from critics who say that the abolition of the scheme will undermine small legal firms who recruit from under-privileged backgrounds, as well as reducing the number of lawyers working in areas such as immigration and crime. Many will not be able to afford to undertake the lower paid work, and the decision could result in new lawyers turning toward more lucrative legal career paths. Laura Janes, chair of Young Legal Aid Lawyers, said: “If the government takes away this tiny but important lifeline, the kind of people who want to use the law to help ordinary people will no longer be able to afford it. This government has not even commenced their analysis of the legal aid position yet, and they already seem to be committed to getting rid of diversity in legal aid provision,” She added: “The provision of these grants went some way toward sustaining the flow of talented entrants into the legal aid sector, and making sure that legal aid work is not a closed door to applicants from poorer backgrounds.”

Lord Bach, former legal aid minister, condemned the move, saying: “This is a mean decision which will lead to some skilled and committed young lawyers not choosing the legal aid path, but looking to other parts of the law. Everyone knows that there may have to be some savings in the total legal aid budget, but to cancel this superb scheme which has worked so well for the last 8 years in order to save £2.6 million, looks petty and incredibly short-sighted.” Beth Forrester of the Junior Lawyers Division said: “The JLD is acutely aware that the current financial climate has had a grave impact on the availability of training contracts throughout the profession, but we are very disappointed to see that those junior lawyers in particular, who are looking to progress in an area of law which is of maximum benefit to the community, are going to be hardest hit.”

Last word to Laura Janes: “In this age of financial austerity, there is going to be more need than ever for the safety net of legal aid. What steps are the government going to take to ensure there is a next generation of properly supervised, qualified legal aid lawyers? Firms are dropping like flies and those left are going to be relying on armies of unqualified paralegals, who cannot deliver the level of quality the government claims it is committed to.”

Students from low-income backgrounds can no longer afford to become legal aid lawyers, according to a recent report. Social mobility in the legal aid profession is increasingly being curtailed by the financial difficulties of training, and has reached critical levels. Legal aid is becoming a no-go area for ordinary people who want to become lawyers.

So states a report published this week by Young Legal Aid Lawyers (YLAL), an umbrella organisation formed in 2005 to represent the views of law students, solicitors, barristers and paralegals in response to growing concerns over the future of legal aid. Their report is in response to the Government consultation paper ‘New opportunities: Fair Chances for the Future’ and The Panel on Fair Access to the Professions’ report ‘Unleashing Aspirations’.

YLAL claim: “The reasons why social mobility is particularly lacking in the legal aid sector include the lack of subsidised training opportunities, low salaries, and the almost ubiquitous requirement for entry-level candidates to have copious work experience in legal aid, which inevitably can normally only be obtained on an unpaid basis. The result is that those from low-income families cannot afford to become legal aid lawyers and the legal aid profession is therefore becoming less and less representative of the people it serves: those without means”. The recent reforms to the legal aid system have led to a total dearth of training opportunities in the legal aid sector. A few firms continue to take on trainees every year, but these placements have become increasingly competitive. YLAL research showed that a total of 300 or 400 applications per placement is not uncommon, that practitioners are leaving the legal aid sector in droves and that many firms are closing, with no new firms opening. They are also very concerned about the exorbitant costs of undertaking professional qualifications.

According to YLAL the situation is exacerbated by the low rates of remuneration within legal aid. The Law Society recommended minimum wage for trainee solicitors is £16,650, rising to £18,590 in London. Upon qualification, solicitors can expect to earn less than many key workers and in fact most other workers in general. As mentioned in last November’s blog ‘Legal Aid Funding Reforms – Law Society says NO to more fee cuts’, a survey published by the ‘Guardian’ showed that legal aid solicitors earn on average £25,000 per annum – far less than GPs (who earn more than double) and teachers – and less than social workers, nurses, prison officers and sewage plant operatives. The national median salary is £25,816 whereas the median salary for public sector workers is £27,686.

YLAL make 13 recommendations, which include: an immediate review of the prohibitive costs of professional courses required to access the legal profession; an increase in the number of LSC sponsored training contracts; ongoing support and incentives to all firms that demonstrate a commitment to taking on trainees; and improved assistance to parents and others who support a family, who wish to enter the legal aid profession. They conclude: “If our recommendations are not taken on board, increasing restrictions on legal aid means that we risk creating a system where those who cannot afford to pay for legal help are reliant on an unrepresentative cohort of legal aid lawyers…The absolute right to free legal advice from a lawyer of your choice is an essential part of meaningful access to justice”.

 The full text of  “Legal aid lawyers: the lost generation in the ‘national crusade’ on social mobility” can be found at:

 http://www.younglegalaidlawyers.org/files/YLAL_SOCIAL_MOBILITY_REPORT_FEB_2010.pdf