Law Soc defends legal aid after 'inaccurate' Daily Mail article

Law Society president Linda Lee has written a letter to the Daily Mail in response to a recent article it published claiming that legal aid is responsible for the increase in the number of UK lawyers. Responding to the piece published on 4 April under the headline "Now we have more lawyers than police thanks to legal aid" she said: "I cannot understand the reference in your headline to legal aid causing the increase in the number of lawyers. Over the past ten years, the number of firms doing legal aid has fallen from over 5,000 to under 3,000. Only 6% of lawyers in the UK undertake work which is funded by legal aid."

She went on to comment on the article's claim that the Law Society's Sound off for Justice campaign (see "Law Society sounds off on legal aid cuts") opposes government cuts to taxpayer-funded legal aid: "The article inaccurately reports that the Law Society campaign ‘Sound off for Justice’ is against the governments cuts to taxpayer funded legal aid. This is simply not true and must be retracted. The ‘Sound off for Justice’ campaign agrees that cuts have to be made. The question is how we do this? The Law Society itself in its alternative reforms package is suggesting cuts of £384 million which is greater than the government required savings of £350 million pounds."

Lee ended her letter calling for full public and parliamentary debate over who should be eligible for taxpayer-funded legal aid: "The question that we must answer is who has the right to access justice? Is justice only for the wealthy in our society or organisations that have the means of defending themselves? Or should our society give everyone including the poorest and the most vulnerable access to defend themselves and get their voice heard?"