This was posted on a dental forum by an employment lawyer who is angry about the forthcoming changes to the Legal aid system, which she thinks will reduce choice for anyone needing legal aid. Large legal companies will benefit and smaller companies will not be able to carry out legal aid work.
may interest some on Gransnet.
"Those of you who know me will know that I wasn't always a high flying employment lawyer , I started off my legal life as a lowly criminal legal aid lawyer and for that reason I am currently jumping up and down in outrage at the plan by Chris Grayling, the Minister of Justice, to destroy our criminal justice system - I am not exaggerating.
You may have heard something about this in the media, but you may have not.
I won't rant on too much here but in short, despite already swingeing cuts the MOJ proposes to introduce a scheme of 'Price Competitive Tendering' PCT, which will see the lowest bidders win criminal legal aid contracts, with bids set at a minimum of 17.5% less than current rates - no concerns over quality, just price; the intention is to reduce what is currently about 1600 law firms doing criminal legal aid work down to max 400, and in reality more like 40, with large companies like G4S and even Tesco or Co-Op (both of whom now have legal depts) bidding shudders. (A few years ago there were about 4000 firms, so you can see the sort of cuts that have already been made)
But this isn't just about money - another extremely alarming proposal is to stop free choice of legal representation, so those receiving legal aid will simply be allocated a solicitor. This will NOT save any money (the 'duty' solicitor is paid the same rate as 'own' solicitor); but will have a serious impact on particularly vulnerable clients, such as young people and those with mental health problems, who build a relationship of trust with their solicitor. That will be lost and more miscarriages of justice will follow. The knock on effect will also be devastating for victims and witnesses, as experienced lawyers are forced to leave the profession and trials are run by the lowest bidders, paid the same paltry fixed rate whether there is a trial or not.
At present, despite there currently being a (shortened) consultation, there is not even going to be parliamentary debate on this, it is simply going to be introduced in the Autumn, so those of us in the legal profession are doing everything we can to bring this to the attention of the public and our MP's.
What I am asking you to do is to sign the petition and share it with your colleagues, family and friends: http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/48628
If you are on Twitter you can follow much of this with #saveUKjustice and @NotoPCT - there are also links to many, many blogs written by lawyers working within the CJS explaining why these proposals are going to be so devastating."
They don't really care do they
Things you find stressful that other people don't notice.