LSC inundated, DCA listens

The LSC has received 2,800 responses to its consultation 'Legal aid: a sustainable future'. This is by far the largest response to an LSC consultation.
Meanwhile, in a speech to the Law Society conference on 12th October, the day the consultation closed, Lord Falconer acknowledged that there were significant problems with the fixed fees proposed for civil and family work and indicated that more work needed to be done before a scheme could be implemented.
 
Reporting the conference, the Law Society Gazette quoted him as saying "We need a graduated or fixed fee scheme that better captures the work". At the same time, however, he emphasized that there would be no new money for legal aid.
 
ASA has done a considerable amount of work on the issue of fixed fees for social welfare law and we hope that the LSC will put it to good use.