The Society of Asian Lawyers and the Black Solicitors Network judicial review of the LSC proposals has been settled after an adjournment on the basis that the LSC carry out a full retrospective and prospective cumulative Race Equality Impact Assessment. (See the Law Society press release here).
Top work all round. The assessment should have some interesting results, unlikely to be good news for the LSC.
Also, there is an early day motion set up. EDM 1961 calls on the government to postpone the regulations and meet with all stakeholders to find an alternative future for legal aid. Get your MP to sign it.
Have you seen the infuriating nonsense sent by Carolyn Regan to the Law Society Gazette in response to letters from Peer Reviewers raising major concerns that the fixed fees will lead to a drop in quality? She continues to maintain that LSC statistics indicate that there is no correlation between quality and higher costs, despite the fact that when challenged to produce evidence of this by the House of Commons Standing Committee the LSC was wholly unable to do so. It would be nice to think that the LSC is prepared to put its money where its mouth is and instruct counsel for its various Judicial Reviews on the basis of a three figure fixed fee; obviously they can have every faith that they will get high quality counsel prepared to do a superb job, just like they expect of us.
Not yet (been on holiday) although such stubborness doesn’t surprise me. A post on the semi success of the Law Society’s JR and what it might mean will be here shortly, though.
Ho hum, it is a long way from the beaches and cocktail bars of the last couple of weeks.