Legal aid rates should rise due to halted business: GBA

Legal aid rates should rise across the board for a set period to keep law firms afloat while court business remains curtailed by the COVID-19 shutdown, according to the Glasgow Bar Association. 

In a letter to the Law Society of Scotland's co-conveners of legal aid, Ian Moir and Patricia Thom, the GBA states that while it appreciates the efforts by the Scottish Government and Scottish Legal Aid Board to allow interim payments for work done, "these payments do not in fact supplement or financially support the profession. They are simply advance payments of fees that would have been made at some point in the future".

At the same time current business is taking longer, and extra work is required to prepare written submissions to the court.

It goes on to point out that the Government committed to supporting small businesses, but many practitioners will not have been able to seek the small business grant and others will not qualify for the self-employed grant. 

Given the complete cessation of jury trials, probably until September or October in the sheriff court, and a substantial reduction in summary business, "we believe time is of the essence and that a broad brush approach to a universal formula for an increase in all legal aid and assistance provision would be the most fair approach. We are aware that there are regulations soon to be put before the Parliament regarding fees and an increase of the fees available could be incorporated into those regulations".

The increase could be applied to all work from March 2020 for a period of six months, or longer if court business continues to be impacted by the Government's routemap to easing the lockdown.

The letter asks the conveners and the Society to put the case to the Government in further negotiations.

In response Mr Moir tweeted: "More than happy to feed your ideas into the ongoing work around legal aid and ensuring sustainability of firms." He and the Society were "very alive to the real threat to firms". A further meeting will be held today involving members of the GBA and also the Edinburgh Bar Association.