Yorkshire’s legal landscape – 21st Century Justice
Nick Emmerson, president of the Law Society, writes in the Yorkshire Post (£) about the 21st Century Justice interim report and highlights the disparity in legal access and representation, especially in Yorkshire.
Civil legal aid providers at breaking point
The Justice Gap covers the Law Society’s final report from Frontier Economics, which worked with providers of housing and family legal aid to understand their operating model and financial situation.
Law Society president Nick Emmerson said: “This research reveals an untenable situation where reductions in fee levels by successive governments mean fee-earning staff cannot even recover the costs of providing legal aid, let alone generate a profit to make the organisation sustainable.
“Those who remain in the market are only able to do so by cross-subsidising from other areas and relying on the goodwill of staff to regularly work overtime, leading to real difficulties with recruitment and retention – especially at senior levels of the profession.
“Others are taking the decision that legal aid work is simply no longer viable and exiting the market, leaving areas of the country with no legal aid provision at all.
“With the Civil Legal Aid Review now in its final stages, this research provides a model for future analysis and setting of fee rates at a realistic and sustainable level that is fair to both providers and taxpayers.”
Digital accessibility guidance
Practical Law (£) and LawCareers.Net cover our new guidance to support disabled people in the workplace by highlighting how organisations should prioritise digital accessibility.
Law Society President Nick Emmerson said: “At a time when the legal sector is increasingly being encouraged to explore the use of legal technologies to enhance legal practice, it’s important that law firms and organisations are not inadvertently creating barriers by failing to consider accessibility at a baseline level.
“Instead, firms and organisations should use the opportunities that technologies bring to create a more accessible and inclusive profession for everyone.”
Demi Rixon, vice chair of the Law Society’s Disabled Solicitors Network committee, who led on the production of the guidance, said “It is exhausting and sometimes soul destroying tackling the vast amount of barriers trying to enter the legal profession as a disabled person. Then once you are in, there are even more barriers making it difficult to stay in, and accessible technology is one of these.
“Technology is innovative and exciting and can be a powerful tool to create better inclusion for everyone. Importantly, it can shatter some of those barriers disabled people face.”
Read our press release & our new guidance
Digital justice
The Gazette covers the formation of the new Online Procedure Rules Committee (OPRC), which OPRC chair Sir Geoffrey Vos has described as a “watershed towards making all kinds of dispute resolution accessible.”
Brett Dixon, Law Society council member for personal injury is on the OPRC, alongside Sir Andrew McFarlane, Sir Keith Lindblom, Sir Geoffrey Vos, Sarah Stevens and Gerard Boyers.
Also worth a read:
- Post Office/Horizon IT inquiry: Organisation worried about employing ‘more assertive lawyers’ – Gazette
- Post Office/Horizon IT inquiry: Key questions Paula Vennells must answer – Guardian, BBC News & Sky News
- Post Office/Horizon IT inquiry: Paula Vennels backed into corner – Independent
- Barristers do not want remote hearings rolled back, Bar Council report shows – Legal Futures
- Axiom Ince: Court approves sale of properties linked to firm’s former managing partner – Gazette
- London Magistrates’ staff do not understand spirit of open justice, report reveals – Evening Standard
- There’s an article I shouldn’t tell you about – is contempt law in a losing battle with reality? – Guardian
- Government lawyers blocked plans to make climate protesters pay for damage – Telegraph (£)
- ICC: Biden condemns attempt to seek arrest warrant for Israeli PM – Telegraph (£)
- Rwanda plan: Austrian Chancellor backs asylum claims processed outside EU – Daily Express & Daily Mail
- Women dies in XL bully attack in east London – BBC News & Evening Standard