Help needed

rooiewooie

Hello Pollycat. I'll assume that your greeting was not entirely sincere.

I'm not wouldbeqaulitymoneysaver I've used the information from these forums a lot, most recently in regard to Monarch flight delay claims. I've not got involved in the discussion before, I didn't need to.

I saw this thread flagged up on twitter and I thought I'd see what was being said. It is a complicated subject and it was evident that wouldbeqaulitymoneysaver could do with some support to help contextualise the blogs that have been copied / linked to.

Before I get accused, I'm not a lawyer, just a member of the public who has learned a lot about these issues over the last few weeks.

If anyone wants like to engage in sincere discussion about the issues around these reforms, great. I can try to answer (easy) questions or (more likely) point to blogs and other resources that explain better. If not, no worries.

wouldbeqaulitymoneysaver

If anyone wants like to engage in sincere discussion about the issues around these reforms, great. I can try to answer (easy) questions or (more likely) point to blogs and other resources that explain better. If not, no worries.

I try to point the the appropriate blogs. I try to engage with MSE self interest on this ie Bar Pro Bono Unit. Theoretically that would be classified as a helpful post and would be posted up or at least a post like it on some sort of legal information area.

Thanks @rooiewooie I flagged it up because the the battle is so hard as is evident, but I believe, like you that this is worth fighting for and it's MSE best interests, except they are blind deaf and dumb to what is really going on which will NOT be funny when the proverbial hits the fan IN THEIR OWN LIVES!

Takeaway_Addict

wouldbeqaulitymoneysaver wrote: »

If anyone wants like to engage in sincere discussion about the issues around these reforms, great. I can try to answer (easy) questions or (more likely) point to blogs and other resources that explain better. If not, no worries.

I try to point the the appropriate blogs. I try to engage with MSE self interest on this ie Bar Pro Bono Unit. Theoretically that would be classified as a helpful post and would be posted up or at least a post like it on some sort of legal information area.

Wouldbe it would be better if you learnt how to quote.

rooiewooie

Hello Takeaway_Addict. This is my first attempt at quoting, I hope it is satisfactory!

Up thread you said

Takeaway_Addict wrote: »

Quicker they cut the funding the better.....often wasted.

Would you like to chat about why you believe this to be the case?

Not that money is the main issue with these reforms, as far as I understand it. But it is a starting point for discussion.

jonny_p

ok...hopefully I can add some information here despite not being a lawyer. Apologies for the length but obviously this is not something that can be covered in 10 lines and I have barely scratched the surface.

Chris Grayling is the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice. Despite these lofty titles, he is not a lawyer and therefore has no actual hands-on experience of the workings of the criminal justice system. He has received numerous warnings about manipulation of figures in his various political roles and was involved in the dodgy expenses debacle.

The LC wants to make £220m of savings from the Criminal Legal Aid budget of just under £1Bn (inc. VAT). He wants to achieve this through Price Competitive Tendering. Essentially, providers will need to bid for a guaranteed % of cases at fixed fees. These fees must be at least 17.5% less than current costs. The argument being that "economies of scale" will allow companies to still make a profit.

Very few of the solicitor firms around the country are in a position to bid. This will open the door for multinationals such as G4S, Serco, Tesco, Stobarts and the Co-op to tender their bids. They will in all likelihood, be the main winners in this process and take huge amounts of public money to add to their profits. The Govt think that 1200 of the 1600 solicitor firms will close although it is likely to be more than that.

Ironically, the gov't were totally against PCT when in opposition due to the potential devastating impacts. The (then-shadow) Attorney General said:

"I cannot see that competitive tendering in criminal legal aid makes sense – legal aid contracts do not pay market rates. If firms want to win a competitive tender, the only way they will be able to undercut each other is by steps that could open them up to potential allegations of incompetence.’ He continued: ‘There are ideas creeping into the system that treat legal aid as if it is just about the economic provision of a service. That approach will lead to problems with lowered standards"

There are also lots of comments about the 'cost' of our justice system and how it costs so much more than any other country. This simply is not true as a study was carried out by the EU that concluded that the average spent by a member state was 0.3% of annual GDP. Guess where we stood in the table? Bang on average.
Unfortunately the gov't manipulate figures and don't actually give context by saying we spend more on something than country y. However y then spends more than us on something else. Overall though, we are pretty standard for europe once you include all costs for the justice system.

The government have already attempted PCT recently in the translator service used in courts. This relatively straightforward process has been an absolute shambles. The ministry of justice was investigated by the justice select committee and were found to have misled them about the successes and were deemed to have failed due to not understanding the complexity of the service.

The LC wants to make wholesale sweeping changes to the whole criminal justice system without actually any evidence to back up his ideas. This is huge is relative terms to the translation service. No intention to pilot the scheme and assess the impact, just plod on and hope it works. They MoJ even accept that there is no plan-B if things go wrong. Quite scary really isn't it?


People that are opposed to this include the country's judges, leading academics in the field of law, providers of legal services, the gov'ts own treasury counsel, liberty, homeless charities and members of the justice select committee. Many of these actually have no financial interest in legal aid but have real concerns about the plans because they ACTUALLY understand how the justice system works.

The LC claims that he is willing to listen to alternatives. However, the leader of the Criminal Bar Association, Michael Turner QC, has offered to meet and discuss many times. However the LC refuses to do this and has actually pulled out of media interviews when he found out that Michael Turner would be present. He cannot back up his ideas and therefore does not want to try justify them. He is not interested in making savings, he just wants to privatise the justice system.

Assuming the process goes forwards there are many changes in place.
1) You could be accused of an offence by the state
2) The state will then tell you who is going to defend you
3) Your lawyer will be cheap but have little experience and possibly not even have experience in the relevant area of law
4) The lawyer will actually be on an incentive to obtain a guilty plea
5) Due to reduced fees and the multi-national's focus on profits, extra investigations/expert witnesses are unlikely to be paid for
6) You would not be able to change your lawyer regardless of their performance
7) The multinational will be guaranteed work for three years and will have no incentive to do well for you. The Gov't in their consultation document actually state that they expect service to reduce to 'adequate'
8) If you 'qualify' for legal aid by having a gross household disposable income of less than 37.5K you will still be means tested. Got any savings/bonds/house equity? You'll be using some of that first before they top up your costs with legal aid.
9) If you do not qualify for legal aid you will pay privately (expensive)
10) If you are found not guilty, you will not get your actual costs back. You will get the fee that Eddie Stobart would have received. Found innocent but broken financially in the process.
11) If you plead guilty because your G4S or Serco provided lawyer convinced you that "it would be better for you", you could be driven away in a G4S/Serco van to a prison run by G4S/Serco who receive money from the government for looking after you and any other person their lawyer has 'defended'. No conflicts of interest there then!

George Orwell could not have made it up better!

In the modern day we are told by Gov't that we can choose schools, doctors, hospitals, MPs and the political party that runs the country. Customer choice improves standards because their is genuine competition. However when it comes to your liberty, they want to fob you off with the cheapest lawyer that they have chosen to defend you.

Many people say "why should I pay? I don't break the law" which to some extent is fair enough. But what if you or somebody you know was attacked and defended themselves but still ended up being charged for assault? Or somebody made a false rape allegation against you but were convincing enough for you to be charged...the scenario list could go on. What would you want then? I imagine that you would want good representation from a reputable lawyer. I bet that the first time you meet him/her you don't say to yourself "I do hope this one's cheap".

Following the announcement of these proposals, the Legal Aid Agency have made many in-house improvements and state that they have made ca. £170m savings for the coming year. Despite this, the LC still goes on about wanting to still cut another £220m. This follows on from £350m cuts recently applied to civil legal aid.

Obviously there is massive PR spin at work, for instance the recent release of the legal aid earned by various QCs and Solicitor firms. No mention of the taxes to be repaid by those listed and certainly no mention of how many cases they carried out to earn the fees. It is also poor that the figures include civil lawyers when the current consultation is about criminal legal aid. But being open and honest would not get the public on-side would it? Do you think that Grayling via the Mail will be saying "look at these fat cats multinationals taking £300m each" if he gets his way?


The Gov't accept that the average Legal Aid Barrister earns ca £55K. This is before 20%VAT, Chambers Fees, professional license, petrol to drive around the country, carpark fees etc. Actual salary is likely to be in the order of £30,000 before tax and NI. Finishing in court and then working to the early hours is common to earn the same as a police officer with a few years experience. Hardly fat cats at the trough as the daily mail would like to portray.

Legal aid funded solicitors generally earn 20-30K...again not exactly creaming it in. You never see these numbers released as it would not help the gov't case. Just keep rolling out the same tired cliches and info about the top 10 earners rather than averages.

Nick Clegg recently commented on the issue of changing the numbers of toddlers that a child minder/nursery can look after. He essentially blocked the changes by saying....

"we can only decide on this when we have heard the response of people who frankly know better than any politician...I think it is imperative to be led by the evidence...and not make our minds up finally until we had heard from people"

If only he would apply the same sensible logic to the problems that the coalition's secretary of state is going to cause.

All of these changes can be made at the sole decision of Chris Grayling. No need to have a parliamentary vote as it is covered through secondary legislation which conveniently circumvents what you would probably expect for something this big.

If you think that any of this is wrong and sounds too much like 1984 then please sign the petition. 100K signatures would require an open debate on the issues in parliament.

epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/48628

If you think that something this big should actually be fully discussed and voted on in parliament perhaps you should sign it as well.

hopefully some of you are still reading by now

wouldbeqaulitymoneysaver

gb12345 wrote: »

Proper link

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2336003/15m-just-firm-legal-aid-gravy-train-Scale-taxpayers-revealed-Coalition-vows-save-200m.html

There do appear to be a lot of solicitors and barristers getting very rich at the taxpayer's expense.

The DM is misrepresenting the legal Profession once again.
The reason for this set of Lawyers having the pay levels you see is because of highly specialised Cases which other Firms don't touch. The scarcity of no of lawyers per specialism naturally hikes up the fees.
as I stated before the majority of lawyers are earning no more than plumbers not that the grayling press office DM would tell you that.
The DM does stories in order to turn the public against the lawyers in order to privatise as it does all professions where there is a privatisation desire at stake.

gb12345

wouldbeqaulitymoneysaver wrote: »

The DM does stories in order to turn the public against the lawyers in order to privatise as it does all professions where there is a privatisation desire at stake.

Bring on the privatisation I say - my Serco shares have done well over the last year or so and I'm watching Stobart for the right time to buy.:money:

gb12345

wouldbeqaulitymoneysaver wrote: »

You however would be perfectly happy for me to be in the hands of Stobart Tesco Law and end up with a Miscarriage of Justice that has to go to appeal that will cost the taxpayer money.
Thanks for the kind sentiments!

You seem to be doing a lot of assuming as well - you are assuming that the representation you get from a privatised firm would be worse than you would get in the current situation. DO YOU HAVE PROOF OF THAT?

Bring on privatisation - cut costs for the tax payer.

Don't sign this pathetic petition - the proposed changes will save EVERY TAXPAYER money in the long term and put a few money grabbing solicitors and baristers out of business (which is an additional benefit).

Pollycat

wouldbeqaulitymoneysaver wrote: »

I see you didn't bother to read the link? afraid it might unseat your prejudices?:mad::(:rotfl:

Which link are you talking about?

This is the last link you posted (yesterday at 12:55 am post # 60):
http://50shadesofaffray.wordpress.com/2013/05/27/life-at-the-thin-edge-of-the-wedge-the-grim-reality-of-the-independent-junior-criminal-bar/

I believe you also posted the entire article in one of your posts which seems to have been deleted along with your posts about 'Exhibit C' and child abuse cases.

So what?
It's just a 'poor me' outpouring of tosh.
Does that make me prejudiced?
Maybe so, but I'm still not signing the petition.

gb12345

Pollycat wrote: »

It's just a 'poor me' outpouring of tosh.

If someone is willing to put up with effectively working for £3 an hour then you have question their intelligence - don't think I'd want someone like that representing me. She would be better off working in McDonalds or somewhere and save herself the problem of haveing to pay all those expenses and travel the length and bredth of the country.

Pollycat wrote: »

I believe you also posted the entire article in one of your posts which seems to have been deleted along with your posts about 'Exhibit C' and child abuse cases.

Probably deleted for breaking the rule about not pasting large chunks from other websites.

All this poster seems to do is regurgitate information from other sites - they don't seem to have anything original to say for themselves.