The Friends Meeting House in London was a heartening place to be on Wednesday, in the midst of the war that has erupted around price competitive tendering and this comment on the ‘minister of injustice’ by Sir Anthony Hooper QC was one of many well-crafted, quotable reasons as to just how wrong Grayling is with his plans and assumptions. Read the full story

The MoJ roadshow rolled into Liverpool on Tuesday, when a packed audience filled the Corbiere Suite at Aintree racecourse. A splendid panoramic view of the whole course in bright evening sunshine only proved distracting until the business of the evening began. Read the full story

50 lawyers in Liverpool last Friday evening left Law Society representatives in no doubt about their preferred approach to the MoJ’s ‘Transforming Legal Aid’ consultation exercise.

The event was the latest in the Society’s roadshow programme, sponsored by iLaw, to meet with practitioners to discuss current issues and to canvass views. Read the full story

Consultations are like buses. There must be one well on its way because two have just arrived at the same time.

On Monday, MoJ issued a consultation document which sets out the government’s proposals for further reform of the legal aid system in England and Wales. The expressed aim of the proposals is to deliver savings of £220 million per year by 2018/19. At its launch, justice secretary Chris Grayling said: Read the full story

Dear Chris,

Re: Transforming Legal Aid

I read your opening ministerial statement in this lengthy document and had a moment of early confusion. You said:

“Unfortunately, over the past decade, the system has lost much of its credibility with the public.” Read the full story

Last Monday civil legal aid became no longer available for cases involving divorce, child custody, clinical negligence, welfare, employment, immigration, housing, debt, benefit and education. Someone with an odd sense of humour decided that April 1st was an appropriate date. Read the full story

In July 2005, Lord Falconer, then Lord Chancellor, asked Lord Carter to examine how to improve the arrangements for purchasing and procuring publicly funded legal services, particularly criminal defence services.

In his report, published in February 2006, Lord Carter recommended fixed pricing for all criminal legal aid work; a managed market, awarding contracts to efficient and good quality suppliers; and managed price competition between efficient, good quality suppliers. Read the full story

Last week the Law Society, the Legal Services Board and the Ministry of Justice published the results of a research project into the supply of legal services by solicitors’ firms.

The report – ‘A time of change: solicitors’ firms in England and Wales’ – is the culmination of what claims to be one of the largest ever surveys. Based on a sample of 2,007 firms, the report reveals how solicitors’ firms of all types are performing, in the context of recession, market changes, regulatory developments and legal aid reforms. Read the full story

The Low Commission on the Future of Advice and Legal Support was launched last week. The Commission, chaired by Lord Colin Low, a crossbench peer and former chairman of the Royal National Institute of Blind People, will examine how to cope with deep cuts to legal aid at a time of complex benefits reforms. Read the full story

From Monday a range of new criminal offences and sentences introduced in LASPO came into effect.

The new offences include a mandatory life sentence for people convicted of a second very serious sexual or violent offence, aggravated knife possession, causing serious injury by dangerous driving, measures to strengthen community sentences and tough new sentences for hate crime. Justice secretary Chris Grayling said: “Criminals should be in no doubt they will be punished for their crimes, with those who commit the most serious offences receiving the most severe sentences.” Read the full story