News
Training opportunities in legal aid at risk
- 28th October 2009
The government is pressing ahead with the latest proposed cuts in legal aid fees which could see even more family legal aid law firms close, and further decrease the number of training contracts available. The rates of legal aid have been squeezed for some years now – and the number of family law firms alone relying on legal aid work has reportedly dropped from 4,500 in 2000 to 2,800 in 2006.
Carol Storer, director of the Legal Aid Practitioners’ Group (LAPG) says: “LAPG's concern is that if practitioners feel that they cannot deliver a quality service for the fixed fees available they will have a limited number of choices: offer a poorer quality service or pull out of legal aid. If they stop carrying out legal aid work, some will close, some will merge and some will attempt to carry out more privately paying work.
“At present, I am attending a lot of law fairs at universities and talking to students who are desperately keen to become solicitors in legal aid firms but they are finding it hard to obtain training contracts or even to obtain paralegal work.”
“We hope that the LSC will ensure that in 2010 there is a training contract grants scheme that will enable firms and not for profit organisations with LSC contracts to take on trainees because that scheme provides a financial incentive to take on trainees. Without that it is hard to see that there will be many trainee places in the legal aid sector.”
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