Solicitors refusing to deal with burglary cases because of legal aid funding gap

Lawyers are refusing to represent people charged with certain crimes amid a crisis over solicitors' pay, with one burglary suspect turned away by 12 legal firms, the president of the Law Society has said.

- Haroon Siddique

Richard Atkinson, who leads the organisation representing more than 200,000 solicitors in England and Wales, said its members lost money if they took such cases and warned that other crimes, including lower-level sexual offences, also risked becoming uneconomic for practitioners.

The Law Society is in dispute with the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) over its refusal to implement a recommended minimum 15% increase in criminal legal aid, which has resulted in the organisation advising its members to consider whether it is still worthwhile doing such work.

Legal aid ensures people unable to afford representation can get a government-funded lawyer when accused of a crime. Additionally, state funding pays for anyone, regardless of their finances, to receive free legal advice at police stations from a solicitor. If someone is charged with a crime, solicitors also help prepare and argue clients' cases, generally in the lower courts only.

But Atkinson said the profession was edging towards a situation where swaths of cases would be abandoned because defendants could not get legal representation. "I was talking to a colleague a few months ago, and he said to me someone came into the office and said, 'I'm charged with burglary, and I need representation. I've been to 11 firms, and they said they can't represent me.' And he had to say: 'Well, I'm afraid that's now 12'," said Atkinson.