Help needed

kws

wouldbeqaulitymoneysaver wrote: »

Selfish capitalism doesn't wish to care for his fellow man. That's the law of the jungle when the weakest go to the wall.

You do realise that VAT goes to HMRC - the capitalists that you so lovingly refer to don't see a penny of it - they merely act as unpaid tax collectors.

Without it you may pay less for your goods, but you would soon find a whole host of your benefits disappearing.

kws

wouldbeqaulitymoneysaver wrote: »

Because the case would not be handled properly by inexperienced and ill qualified people and I have rights under the Rule of Law.
The niche firms cost less in case time etc.

Do you have proof that your case would not be handled properly? Or are you yet again regurgitating the crap you have read on biased blogs?

mjm3346

gb12345 wrote: »

Why should I have to pay for you to have a specialist niche law firm represent you? If you are incapable of paying for it yourself then you should make do with what you can afford.

Quite right, law firms have got away with screwing the taxpayer for far too long. The hourly rate for Legal aid should be capped at a maximum of minimum wage plus 50% and the cases where it is made available must be strictly controlled.

rooiewooie

If you don't want to read wouldbe, or the blogs, but would like to learn about what the proposals will actually mean in practice (including why it is a false economy) AND have a laugh at the same time, listen to John Finnemore on the Now Show. He starts at 11 minutes into the programme.

www [dot] bbc [dot] co [dot] uk/programmes/b0214336

wouldbeqaulitymoneysaver

The Now Programme Link

http://http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qgt7
I am going to email MSE Admin about allegations of Copyright Infringement as I fear even they don't get it.:(:(:(

wouldbeqaulitymoneysaver

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/it-will-create-an-underclass-government-lawyers-warn-justice-secretary-chris-grayling-over-proposed-unconscionable-changes-to-legal-aid-8648133.html
It will create an underclass Government Lawyers warn Chris Grayling from the Independent

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/10091641/Chris-Graylings-proposed-reforms-to-legal-aid-undermine-the-foundations-of-British-justice.html
Chris Graylings proposed reforms to Legal aid undermine the foundations of British Justice.
The REAL threat Eddie Stobart
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2338231/New-face-British-justice-Eddie-Stobart-lorry-boss-judge-called-incompetent.html

Take a look yourselves if you can bear it.:(:(:(

wouldbeqaulitymoneysaver

One of the saddest things about all of this, is that the government is removing the last resort, the final recourse, for desperate people in a crisis. Because when the school can’t help, when the social workers can’t do any more, the housing officer’s hands are tied, the prison officers say no, the hospital says we have no money, when the phone calls remain unanswered and the letters all say “no”, when all hope has gone, that’s where we come in. The only chance that some of the most vulnerable people in our community have ever had. Very often, the last chance that ordinary people have, whose lives have taken a disastrous turn.

How often have dedicated housing lawyers achieved the seemingly impossible and kept families saddled with debt in their home, and in the process, kept the families together and children in their schools?

How often, after years of negative decisions by social workers, when all the efforts of local charities, and the local MP, have come to nothing, have skilful community care lawyers been able to show that, yes, there is a legal duty to help that child, still in school, care for his disabled parent? Or, despite the budget cuts, there still is a duty to provide care to an elderly man or woman, unable to cope.

Or take the family lawyer, who protects her client from domestic violence, when the social workers and police can’t, and obtains safe housing for her and her children, when the housing department won’t budge?

Or the social security lawyer, who understands the unbelievably complex system we have, and is able to win the tough fight for basics – so severely disabled people can be helped to get out of bed, get dressed and go to the toilet, so children living in poverty have at least basic food.

The prison lawyer, the last life-line for the mentally ill adult and also the child in detention. And I do mean life-line. Unlawful decisions about segregation, the denial of appropriate care and treatment, disciplinary punishments and the like can cost the lives of vulnerable adults and children who feel targeted by the state and abandoned by the community.

And the immigration lawyer. When people lose everything: their jobs, savings, home and country, often their families, often their health, when they finally reach a safe haven, for example this country, the immigration lawyer represents a big part of the fundamental decency that our community continues to show to some of the most desperate people on the planet, many of them children, on their own, without any adult to look after them.

These are not exceptional cases. This is our day to day work. Over the years, we have helped repair thousands and thousands of damaged lives, when all else has failed and there is no other recourse. That has benefitted the wider community socially and economically also. For example, work done by the Citizen’s Advice Bureaux, shows that every £1 spent on housing, debt, employment and benefits advice has saved the state between £2.34 and £8.80. Also, as Judges and others are pointing out, the cost to the public of the courts having to deal with litigants in person, in civil cases, greatly exceeds the savings planned to result from cutting back on lawyers.

One is driven to the conclusion that the aim is not to save money but fundamentally to undermine our legal system.

Consider how it has traditionally operated. True it is, that most firms have got bigger, to achieve economies of scale. But it remains the case that the great majority of publicly funded work is carried out by a diverse group of relatively small, independent organisations – solicitors’ firms, law centres, CAB, charities and other NGOs. This is not chance but the evolution of a cost effective and successful network, providing for independent grass roots advice, and also specialist advice, as needed.

There needs to be local organisations, connected with the communities around them, if vulnerable individuals and marginal communities, are to have access to justice.
There have to be local organisations, independent from the state, and independent from big business, if the justice system is to inspire confidence in clients and make the end result – win or lose – credible.

And there have to be local organisations, so clients have some choice of advisers. Legal advisers offer not only professional skills but also a personal relationship, involving trust and empathy. For that reason, clients need a degree of choice and choice promotes healthy competition.

But all of this is suffering the death of a thousand cuts. Legal aid rates have been cut every year for over 20 years, by reference to inflation, and last year there was an additional cut of over 10%. Many kinds of work have been taken out of scope. More and more people have been excluded from eligibility. And the consequences have been grim. Over 2000 legal aid firms and law centres have gone out of business – that’s about 40% of all providers. The 3 big charitable organisations – Law for All, Refugee & Migrant Justice and the Immigration Advisory Service – have all closed down. Shelter has closed over 1/3 of its advice agencies. The British Red Cross, CAB and Law Centres are making redundancies and many branches have closed. Expert witnesses are leaving in droves. The junior end, at least, of the criminal Bar faces extinction, imminently, with civil barristers shortly to follow.

All of this means that fewer and fewer vulnerable individuals are getting the last resort legal help they need when the crisis arrives. And it also means that those few who remain eligible have been getting a much reduced service. But the current proposals represent a quantum leap into the abyss.

As things stand, in crime, and then in civil, we are likely to see the government awarding big money contracts to big business organisations to provide publicly funded legal services. Organisations such as G4S, SERCO and Stobbarts have expressed an interest. Others are sure to follow.

Fine companies though they may be, in some respects, it seems almost beyond belief that any government would wish to hand over responsibility for managing an important part of the justice system to a large business organisation whose only interest lies in making a profit for its share-holders and securing future big money contracts.

I leave to one side the obvious practical consequences and concerns about the quality of legal advice to be provided, the lack of choice, lack of access and so on and so on. And I leave aside all the consequential failures that will ensue, in not holding public bodies to account, all the damaged lives that will go un-repaired, all the crises that will not be averted, the knock-on economic costs of that, the soaring cost of administering the courts without sensible input from lawyers acting in the public interest and so on.

What about the principle of justice? Something we all believe in. As part of our democracy. Surely, you cannot have justice without the independent lawyer, free of fear and favour. The local Law Centre, the local firm of solicitors, the barrister – we all do have and are seen to have that independence. But a large business organisation? No. In this day and age, the relationship between government and big business is simply too close. Government already pays big business organisations large sums of money to provide services to, and sometimes to run, the public bodies whose decisions are very often in question. And the continued involvement of big business in legal provision depends on them making large profits and securing big money contracts. That is not consistent with independence or the appearance of independence. The whole model is fundamentally flawed.

As lawyers, professionals who care about the welfare of their clients, and believers in justice, we must do everything we can to avert this. That means, of course, entering into a positive and constructive dialogue with the government – because we can all agree that public money needs to be used as efficiently and sensibly as possible, especially when times are hard. But we have a strong case that the government’s current proposals fail the test of reason, compassion, justice and value for money. All we can do, and what we can do, is advance that case to everyone who will listen. If it is true, as I believe it to be true, that real value for money, reason, compassion and justice do all remain values that are important to everyone, then our defence of legal aid, for the sake of our clients, will surely succeed.

From the demo outside the MOJ after the hastily convened ' Consultation' which had 13,000 responses
http://http://gclaw.wordpress.com/2013/06/05/624/
and
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/48628
Join the 83k who have already signed once you believe me and OP aren't talking rubbish but the truth.

mjm3346

wouldbeqaulitymoneysaver wrote: »

Legal aid rates have been cut every year for over 20 years, by reference to inflation, and last year there was an additional cut of over 10%.

The rates are still far too high so it just goes to show how much they have been overpaid.
The rates need to be cut much more and legal aid should only be available to those facing criminal charges.

Pollycat

wouldbeqaulitymoneysaver wrote: »

I am not a Lawyer but what little I have read has convinced me without doubt that the Legal Profession and the Legal System as it currently stands has a case, and I am proud to be 'defending' them against, with elite few others on twitter, against the avalanche of misunderstanding that is levelled against them by the likes of the DM.

But in the post below you go on (and on) about various types of lawyer (social security, family, prison etc) and then use 'we' and 'our' in your following statements which to me puts you in the 'I am a lawyer' category.

Either that or you have copied and pasted text from someone else (as you have done frequently in your earlier posts).

It's getting increasingly hard to determine whether you are writing something original or just regurgitating something you have read elsewhere.

If you are going to quote someone else, please use the 'quote' function or, better still, just provide the link.

wouldbeqaulitymoneysaver wrote: »

One of the saddest things about all of this, is that the government is removing the last resort, the final recourse, for desperate people in a crisis. Because when the school can’t help, when the social workers can’t do any more, the housing officer’s hands are tied, the prison officers say no, the hospital says we have no money, when the phone calls remain unanswered and the letters all say “no”, when all hope has gone, that’s where we come in. The only chance that some of the most vulnerable people in our community have ever had. Very often, the last chance that ordinary people have, whose lives have taken a disastrous turn.

How often have dedicated housing lawyers achieved the seemingly impossible and kept families saddled with debt in their home, and in the process, kept the families together and children in their schools?

How often, after years of negative decisions by social workers, when all the efforts of local charities, and the local MP, have come to nothing, have skilful community care lawyers been able to show that, yes, there is a legal duty to help that child, still in school, care for his disabled parent? Or, despite the budget cuts, there still is a duty to provide care to an elderly man or woman, unable to cope.

Or take the family lawyer, who protects her client from domestic violence, when the social workers and police can’t, and obtains safe housing for her and her children, when the housing department won’t budge?

Or the social security lawyer, who understands the unbelievably complex system we have, and is able to win the tough fight for basics – so severely disabled people can be helped to get out of bed, get dressed and go to the toilet, so children living in poverty have at least basic food.

The prison lawyer, the last life-line for the mentally ill adult and also the child in detention. And I do mean life-line. Unlawful decisions about segregation, the denial of appropriate care and treatment, disciplinary punishments and the like can cost the lives of vulnerable adults and children who feel targeted by the state and abandoned by the community.

And the immigration lawyer. When people lose everything: their jobs, savings, home and country, often their families, often their health, when they finally reach a safe haven, for example this country, the immigration lawyer represents a big part of the fundamental decency that our community continues to show to some of the most desperate people on the planet, many of them children, on their own, without any adult to look after them.

These are not exceptional cases. This is our day to day work. Over the years, we have helped repair thousands and thousands of damaged lives, when all else has failed and there is no other recourse. That has benefitted the wider community socially and economically also. For example, work done by the Citizen’s Advice Bureaux, shows that every £1 spent on housing, debt, employment and benefits advice has saved the state between £2.34 and £8.80. Also, as Judges and others are pointing out, the cost to the public of the courts having to deal with litigants in person, in civil cases, greatly exceeds the savings planned to result from cutting back on lawyers.

One is driven to the conclusion that the aim is not to save money but fundamentally to undermine our legal system.

Consider how it has traditionally operated. True it is, that most firms have got bigger, to achieve economies of scale. But it remains the case that the great majority of publicly funded work is carried out by a diverse group of relatively small, independent organisations – solicitors’ firms, law centres, CAB, charities and other NGOs. This is not chance but the evolution of a cost effective and successful network, providing for independent grass roots advice, and also specialist advice, as needed.

There needs to be local organisations, connected with the communities around them, if vulnerable individuals and marginal communities, are to have access to justice.
There have to be local organisations, independent from the state, and independent from big business, if the justice system is to inspire confidence in clients and make the end result – win or lose – credible.

And there have to be local organisations, so clients have some choice of advisers. Legal advisers offer not only professional skills but also a personal relationship, involving trust and empathy. For that reason, clients need a degree of choice and choice promotes healthy competition.

But all of this is suffering the death of a thousand cuts. Legal aid rates have been cut every year for over 20 years, by reference to inflation, and last year there was an additional cut of over 10%. Many kinds of work have been taken out of scope. More and more people have been excluded from eligibility. And the consequences have been grim. Over 2000 legal aid firms and law centres have gone out of business – that’s about 40% of all providers. The 3 big charitable organisations – Law for All, Refugee & Migrant Justice and the Immigration Advisory Service – have all closed down. Shelter has closed over 1/3 of its advice agencies. The British Red Cross, CAB and Law Centres are making redundancies and many branches have closed. Expert witnesses are leaving in droves. The junior end, at least, of the criminal Bar faces extinction, imminently, with civil barristers shortly to follow.

All of this means that fewer and fewer vulnerable individuals are getting the last resort legal help they need when the crisis arrives. And it also means that those few who remain eligible have been getting a much reduced service. But the current proposals represent a quantum leap into the abyss.

As things stand, in crime, and then in civil, we are likely to see the government awarding big money contracts to big business organisations to provide publicly funded legal services. Organisations such as G4S, SERCO and Stobbarts have expressed an interest. Others are sure to follow.

Fine companies though they may be, in some respects, it seems almost beyond belief that any government would wish to hand over responsibility for managing an important part of the justice system to a large business organisation whose only interest lies in making a profit for its share-holders and securing future big money contracts.

I leave to one side the obvious practical consequences and concerns about the quality of legal advice to be provided, the lack of choice, lack of access and so on and so on. And I leave aside all the consequential failures that will ensue, in not holding public bodies to account, all the damaged lives that will go un-repaired, all the crises that will not be averted, the knock-on economic costs of that, the soaring cost of administering the courts without sensible input from lawyers acting in the public interest and so on.

What about the principle of justice? Something we all believe in. As part of our democracy. Surely, you cannot have justice without the independent lawyer, free of fear and favour. The local Law Centre, the local firm of solicitors, the barrister – we all do have and are seen to have that independence. But a large business organisation? No. In this day and age, the relationship between government and big business is simply too close. Government already pays big business organisations large sums of money to provide services to, and sometimes to run, the public bodies whose decisions are very often in question. And the continued involvement of big business in legal provision depends on them making large profits and securing big money contracts. That is not consistent with independence or the appearance of independence. The whole model is fundamentally flawed.

As lawyers, professionals who care about the welfare of their clients, and believers in justice, we must do everything we can to avert this. That means, of course, entering into a positive and constructive dialogue with the government – because we can all agree that public money needs to be used as efficiently and sensibly as possible, especially when times are hard. But we have a strong case that the government’s current proposals fail the test of reason, compassion, justice and value for money. All we can do, and what we can do, is advance that case to everyone who will listen. If it is true, as I believe it to be true, that real value for money, reason, compassion and justice do all remain values that are important to everyone, then our defence of legal aid, for the sake of our clients, will surely succeed.

From the demo outside the MOJ after the hastily convened ' Consultation' which had 13,000 responses
http://http://gclaw.wordpress.com/2013/06/05/624/
and
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/48628
Join the 83k who have already signed once you believe me and OP aren't talking rubbish but the truth.

I think your rant-y style of writing is contributing in part to the lack of support you are receiving on this forum.

wouldbeqaulitymoneysaver wrote: »

You don't even know me and once again I notice MSE friends are not leaping to my defence to their shame.

What on earth are you on about?

MSE 'friends'?
This is a public forum, I'm certainly not 'friends' with anyone on here.
I agree with some people's views sometimes, then maybe on another different topic I may disagree totally with that same poster.
It doesn't make me 'friends' with them if I agree and it doesn't make me an enemy of them if I disagree with them.

And as for saying 'shame' because posters aren't leaping to your defence, then maybe that should tell you that they simply don't agree with your opinions.

Takeaway_Addict

wouldbeqaulitymoneysaver wrote: »

MSE is thrown me to the Lions.

You're not quite getting this, you are throwing yourself to the lions with your constant ramblings.