EDINBURGH Bar Association is continuing to cut back on the number of Scottish Legal Aid Board (SLAB) rotas its members are prepared to serve on as part of an ongoing protest about the level of fees paid for publicly funded legal advice.
Having initially withdrawn from SLAB’s police station duty rota at the end of 2017, the organisation’s members shunned its Justice of the Peace court roster in September last year and in November voted to stop accepting court appointments in summary cases where the accused is prohibited from carrying out their own defence.
READ MORE: Legal aid system in crisis as lawyers shun police duty scheme
Now the small number of EBA firms that sat on SLAB’s extradition court duty scheme have decided to withdraw, with the association’s full membership considering whether to give up duty work altogether.
EBA president Leanne McQuillan said that despite the Scottish Government announcing that all legal aid fees would rise by three per cent in April, the association’s members are taking a stand because they feel the increase does not go far enough.
“The 3% increase is too low as far as we’re concerned,” she said.
“We don’t feel that the 3% will do anything to alleviate our concerns about the future of the legal aid profession.”
When the EBA’s members began cutting back on duty work in December 2017, the association said it was as a direct result of many fee levels remaining unchanged since 1992.
With firms doing publicly funded work unable to attract talent at the junior end workloads had increased for everyone else, making it harder for firms to juggle rota commitments with their own workloads.
In light of this, the association, whose members will continue to offer the full spectrum of legal aid-funded services to their own clients, has placed its rota membership under review.
READ MORE: Edinburgh lawyers shun Justice of the Peace legal aid rota
“We’re still on the duty plans for domestic matters and normal custodies, but we have considered whether we’ll continue to be on both of those,” Ms McQuillan said.
“We have discussed whether to withdraw from all of them and some people are in support of doing that – I personally support it. They are both under review.”
A spokesman for SLAB said that as the number of cases heard in the extradition court, which sits within Edinburgh Sheriff Court and hears cases from across Scotland, averages around two a week the lawyers from its own Public Defence Solicitors’ Office (PDSO) will cover the gaps in the rota left by the six departing EBA firms.
“The PDSO solicitors are on duty one week in three in line with Scottish Government policy on PDSO duty allocations. The other six private firms were on duty one week in nine,” he said.
“Four of the six private firms have given us the four weeks’ notice required to withdraw from the duty plan.
“PDSO Edinburgh will cover the small number of extradition cases that require the assistance of the duty solicitor if private firms aren’t available for duty slots.”
The PDSO also stepped in when solicitors’ groups from across the country followed the EBA’s lead and withdrew from the police station duty scheme, with a spokesman for the Scottish Government - which funds SLAB - indicating that any future gaps would also be filled by PDSO solicitors.
“We have acknowledged the financial challenges faced by some members of the legal profession and have been encouraged by the positive response of both the Law Society of Scotland and Faculty of Advocates to our announcement of a 3% increase in all legal aid fees from April,” he said.
READ MORE: Edinburgh lawyers make further cutbacks to legal aid workloads
“The Public Defence Solicitors Office and Civil Legal Aid Offices ensure that vital access to legal aid solicitors is maintained for those in our society, often the most vulnerable, who are entitled to it.
“There are no indications that the withdrawal of some services by the Edinburgh Bar Association has resulted in people being unable to access a solicitor.”
The Scottish Government announced the 3% rise to legal aid fee rates despite a review carried out by Martyn Evans, the departing chief executive of charitable organisation Carnegie UK Trust, recommending no increase be made. The government has also committed simplify the system by reviewing how fees are set and paid.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here