Legal Aid

The Law Society of Scotland has highlighted the importance of making the legal aid system easier to navigate for members of the public and solicitors, and reiterated concerns about the sustainability of funding for the service as part of the response to a Scottish government consultation on legal ai

Campaigners have called for the legal fees of bereaved families in fatal accident inquiries (FAI) to be paid out of public funds, just as all Scottish Prison Service (SPS) legal fees are paid for by the taxpayer. The SPS has spent seven times more on solicitor fees in FAIs than bereaved families hav

The public is being asked to give their views on how to ensure current legal aid provision meets the needs of modern Scotland. Ministers say they want to ensure the system is user-focused, flexible and valued as a public service.

Victims of discrimination in England and Wales are being denied their fundamental right to justice and perpetrators are going unchallenged because of failures in the legal aid system, the human rights watchdog has warned. An inquiry into legal aid for victims of discrimination by the Equality and Hu

Declining access to legal aid in England and Wales has been highlighted in a United Nations report on the UK, which describes the budget as having been "decimated". Legal aid has been dramatically reduced in England and Wales since 2012. The LASPO Act (Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offende

The Law Society of Scotland has called on the Scottish government to pursue "a package of wider reform" following a three per cent increase in legal aid fees. All solicitors and advocates who provide people with advice and representation through the legal aid scheme in Scotland received a three per

All solicitors and advocates who provide people with advice and representation through the legal aid scheme in Scotland will receive a three per cent increase in fees from today. The increase was announced last November as part of the Scottish government’s wider response to Martyn Evans’

The Scottish government had no intention to reverse cuts to the legal aid budget made in 2011, contrary to claims made by the Edinburgh Bar Association (EBA) that these savings were meant to be temporary, Justice Secretary Humza Yousaf stated as he announced an impending consultation with the profes

The impact of budget cuts on the criminal justice system in England and Wales is set to be highlighted in cinemas across the UK in a new advert for The Secret Barrister's book. The anonymous lawyer's book, The Secret Barrister: Stories of the Law and How It’s Broken, was reviewed in Scottish L

Swingeing cuts to legal aid have had a devastating effect on parts of Wales, with some towns having no law centres or legal aid lawyers, The Guardian reports. Before the introduction of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act (Laspo) in 2013, legal aid would have accounted for 40 p

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has invited solicitors to contribute to a research project looking at whether legal aid for discrimination cases provides effective access to justice for people who have suffered discrimination in Scotland. The equality body also wants to hear from any

Academics, advocates and solicitors to advise on approach to reviewing legal aid fees. Experts from across the legal profession have joined a Scottish government panel to advise on an evidence-based approach for a review of fee levels for legal aid services.

The Scottish government's plans to introduce a presumption against prison sentences of 12 months or less would, in practice, apply to sentences of anywhere up to 18 months where a guilty plea is tendered early enough and would limit access to justice as declining summary business shrinks the pool of

A law firm funder which in part aims to fill the gap left by swingeing cuts to legal aid has raised £100 million in finance. SpectraLegal, a provider of finance and litigation risk management services established in 2014, is currently developing financing options for the UK legal services