William Flack Blog

Something tells me that Carolyn Regan was not so grinning happily as in this picture when she announced her resignation as Chief Executive of the Legal Services Commission earlier this month and the government announced the effective abolition of the Commission.

No personal offence intended but I don’t think that anyone (apart from those of her colleagues who will lose their jobs) will be sad to see the back of Ms Regan or the Legal Services Commission.  I suspect that the wider public have no idea that they were ever there in the first place. Those of us involved in the provision of legal services have long despaired at the damage caused to those services by the work of the Commission. The levels of vandalism and sheer incompetence seemed to reach new depths with every passing month. The most recent examples include the new civil contracts which after months of delay have recently been unveiled revealing provisions which it is clear that nobody at the LSC or anywhere else understands with any confidence. These  will presumably have to be clarified by hugely expensive Judicial Review proceedings like the last contract three years ago. This month they announced that they had run out of money and could not pay anyone till next month.

The underlying problem with the Legal Services Commission was that it was run by people who like Ms Regan were mostly not lawyers and had no experience of  providing legal services. This meant that they could not engage in any meaningful discussion with the legal profession about how to administer quality legal services within fixed budgets and became defensive and hostile.  Instead of constructive engagement with the people providing legal services the Commission embarked on a series of misguided initiatives which were ultimately aimed at excluding lawyers from providing legal services. Soon after its creation the Commission’s corporate mission statements started to refer to “our clients” rather than to the clients of service providers. This was compounded more recently by the LSC creating its own Community Legal Advice Centres through which the Commission intended to cut out the providers altogether and provide services direct to the public themselves.  Meanwhile rates of pay were cut and other measures introduced which have led to mass migration of experienced lawyers from the Legal Aid. These initiatives reminded me of how the Roman emperor Caligula made his horse a senator. In doing so he demonstrated his contempt for and power over the senate. I suspect that if Jack Straw had not stepped in it would only have been a matter of time until there was a horse out there somewhere with a Community Legal Service logo on its blanket giving quality legal advice and achieving positive outcomes for his clients.

In 2009 the LSC wasted thousands of pounds of its limited budget on a pointless media campaign celebrating the fact that “Legal Aid Is 60”. The web site which they set up for people to add their comments about Legal Aid had to be heavily censored after large numbers of comments about the destruction of legal services were posted instead of the praise and celebration which had been hoped for.  The Legal Services Commission could shut its own ears but it was perhaps inevitable that the Minstry of Justice would eventually wake up to what was going on.

It may well be that the Ministry of Justice will make an even worse mess of running Legal Aid than the Legal Services Commission.  There is more political capital to be made from being seen to give “fat cat” lawyers and their “scrounger” clients a hard time than being seen to be giving them a helping hand.  It may be that in time we will be begging Ms Regan and even Crispin Passmore (remember him?) to come back and make everything right again. Stranger things have happened. I would hope though that the Ministry will try and ensure that those they entrust with managing Legal Aid are people who have some experience of providing legal services and are able to work with the legal profession rather than waging war on them.

I found an interesting post at ITProPortal about this new mobile application the ASBOromter which tells you the level of anti social behaviour in different areas. The information used comes from government databases.  You can read more about it at the ITProPortal site.

One one level this is quite a scarey development. It would seem to only be a matter of time until mug shots, names and addresses of people against whom ASBOs have been made will be available in this way along with details of other convictions. Green markers for nonces, Yellow markers for scum who mug old ladies, Red markers for filth who sell drugs to kiddies etc etc.  These people will then be visited by mobs of Sun readers carrying burning torches  and nooses.  It is worrying to think how we will learn to use the increased amounts of data that become available

On a more positive level there maye a future ahead of us where people can get data about their local authorities and the people who work there. For instance people applying as homeless to the council could find out how long their caseworker has been doing the job, what training they have had and how many of their decisions have been overturned on review.  The same is true of solicitors and even Judges. It should also be possible to view the repair history of properties offered to tenants who might have wanted to know that the last three tenants were moved out due to chronic condensation problems which were not dealt with before the mould which is due to return in three months was washed off and the walls repainted.

Maybe the spectre of Big Brother spying on us which is usually held up as a reason for restricting access to  what we consider should be private data is an illusion. That idea is based on the assumption that the technology required to amass the data was only available to those who have traditionally governed us and that access to more data will only make them stronger and the rest of us more vulnerable to the abuse of power by them. However, maybe the combination of the free flow of online data and the low cost of accessing and analysing through cheap computers and phones  will actually reduce the power of these state and private sector organisations as citizens are able to hold them to account. That does still leave the problems of people’s right to privacy from each other and not just from the state.  The lynch mobs with the i-phone apps are definitely still going to be a problem. I would hope though that a more informed population might not feel so threatened by perceived deviants in their midst and would come to view the sort of vigilante approach of the present time as barbaric in the same way as we now think of attending public executions or paying money to view and taunt the patients of mental hospitals as people did in days gone by.

Here are two videos which I have discovered thanks to an email news letter from the Law Centres Federation. The are extremely well made and demonstrate the value of social welfare law work.

Perhaps the biggest obstacle for those trying defend Legal Aid work in recent years has been the negative image that the public have of lawyers. We are generally seen as fat cats who claim to be concerned about our clients but are really only it it for the huge amounts of tax payers  money which we receive.  Admittedly this is mostly an image of private practice solicitors and barristers but the public image of law centre lawyers suffers as a result of it as well. If there were more videos like this I would expect this to change.  More please!

Maureen’s Story

Sandra and Robert’s Story

I am pleased to see that the government are reportedly concerned that women seeking accommodation from councils as homeless persons because they are fleeing domestic violence are not being provided with a proper service by local authorities. Details of this issue can be seen on the recent post on the Homelessness Officer’s Blog.  In summary the worry is that councils are turning away women (without children or clear medical problems) who are fleeing domestic violence without providing them with any assistance. They are legally able to do this because the law currently allows counci’s to get away with finding that they are not in priority need for the purposes of Part 7 of the Housing Act 1996. They then only have to provide them with advice and assistance which anyone familiar with homelessness has usually means an out of date list of hostels and advice agencies plus directions to the Exit of the council’s office.

I was disappointed to see that Ian Austin, the Minister at the Department for Communities and Local Government has addressed these concerns by making rather empty statements about how proper levels of assistance should be provided by local authorities and talking about inquiries. If he was seriously concerned about this issue there is a very simple solution….just change the law in England so that it is the same as it is in Wales where victims of domestic violence are entitled to be treated as being vulnerable full stop. In England, for some reason, the applicant must show that she is vulnerable because of domestic violence. This exposes her to the Pereira Test and to having her application for assistance rejected where it would have been accepted if she had made the application in Wales. Details of this gap in English law can be seen in a very useful article by Tilly Rubens. Please correct me if I am wrong but this injustice could be remedied very quickly by Statutory Instrument.

I wonder why neither  Mr Austin nor anyone else at the Department for Communities and Local Government has not announced that they are going to  bring the law in England into line with the law in Wales.  I suspect it is because they believe that councils do not have enough housing stock available to help victims of domestic violence and should not therefore be required to do so. It would be honest of them if they came out and said this rather than pretending to be concerned about the plight of victims of domestic violence.

Here is an example of just how bad the shortage of good immigration lawyers available to provide free advice and assistance to peole on a low income in London has become.

Last Thursday (17 September 2009) a client who I have been helping with homelessness application told me that she urgently needed help from an immigration lawyer.  Her violent ex partner had told her that he had reported to the authorities that she is an illegal overstayer and had informed them where to find her. I am based in South West London. I did not know of any good immigration lawyers who would be likely to be able to see her. I therefore sent an email to a contact who works for an organastion with a Community Legal Advice contract for providing telephone advice and who have an immigration department. They are based well outside London but deal with many callers from here. I asked if she could identify a lawyer anywhere in London who could assist. She not only sent me a list of lawyers but offered to call them as well.  When she had finished she sent me an email which included the following:-

“just called the numbers on the email below – fisher meredith weren’t taking legal aid and couldn’t reach wilson and co

The refugee and migrant justice said they have a drop in at their office monday, wednesday and friday.  Doors open at very early – 7am – for a 9.30 start and they only take 15 people a drop in session.  So this may get her advice sooner if she can find someone to look after the kids while she goes to queue.

Immigration Advice Service – 0844 974 4000 – advised that they could offer an appointment at the end of October I didn’t book this as wasn’t sure if client would want this.  However, they also advised that if client got a decision from the home office they would be able to assist her considerably faster than this.  They also have a telephone advice service where client will be able to get more advice to start with.  So this may be the best option for her.” *

From this you can see that she was only able to identify four possible organisations in the whole of London. The first of those wasn’t taking on legal aid cases, the second couldn’t be reached at all and a third could not offer an appointment for another six weeks. The client was therefore left with the prospect of queuiing outside the offices of Refugee and Migrant Justice at 7:00am in the hope that she might be one of the 15 people lucky enough to be seen.

This experience has confirmed what I have long suspected; that legal aid immigration law does not really exist any more as a proper service. It would make me very happy if people were able to respond to this post and prove me wrong by giving me the details of lots of quality firms or Law Centres where people could get help with immigration problems.

*I have changed the first name of the client to the word “client” here but otherwise the text is identical to the email.

Following the excellent lead shown by John Bolch of Family Lore in setting up a familylaw wiki I have set up a housing law wiki.

The housing law wiki is still very basic.  I hope that I can attract a swarm of highly committed housing specialists who can help me turn it into the sort of dynamic free resource that people who talk about Web 2.0 get excited about.  I worry that it may turn into another bright idea that soon becomes stagnant due to other commitments.  If anyone has some spare time and is interested in helping with writing or editing the wiki with me please let me know.

I have tried setting up a wiki before but ran out of steam and abandoned it. Hopefully that won’t happen this time.

I was at a meeting on homelessness this week where only two of us had seen Cathy Come Home. The film that legend has it left the public so shocked at the way in which young homeless families were treated that the Homeless Persons Act 1977 was introduced…..after ten years. Well better late than never.

After some digging I found that it has been uploaded onto YouTube in ten minute segments. I have created a playlist which should enable you to watch it right though.

Maybe its time for Ken Loach to do a remake or a sequel. He could have his new star Eric Cantona in it visiting homeless persons units and helping combat gatekeeping.

Shortly after my post on 12 June about the Dump Duncan Lewis & Co campaign I received a message that their Practice Manager Adam Makepeace had called my office and asked to speak to me. As I dialled his number I was worried that I was likely to face threats of libel action or verbal abuse. I was pleasantly surprised then at the way in which he sought to engage with me constructively.

I invited Adam to post a response to my post straight onto the blog but he asked to meet with me instead. I was curious to see inside one of their offices so I arranged to visit the Clapham Junction branch on 22 June. I ended up spending about an hour and a half there discussing the way in which Duncan Lewis works, how they feel about the campaign against them and how we might work together in the South London area in the future.

There was nothing sinister about the office I visited. It looked just like another other Legal Aid supplier’s office and they used the same case management system as me. Adam outlined the history and work mode of the firm. I was impressed at the way in which Duncan Lewis has grown from three solicitors in 1998 to a number of offices with something like 30 directors, 80 solicitors and a hundred or so other staff. I set up Flack & Co in 1999 with one other solicitor. We hoped to be able to develop an organisation which would cover a number of areas of law and go some way to meeting the huge unmet demand for legal services but have been unable to do so. I have to take my hat off to Duncan Lewis for achieving what I have been unable to achieve after starting from a similar position at the same time.

I asked Adam where he thought Duncan Lewis were getting it wrong and attracting such bad publicity. It might be possible to dismiss the London Coalition Against Poverty as a group with a political agenda which leads them to attack a successful private sector organisation without good reason for doing so. It is not so easy to dismiss the similar concerns which I told Adam that other people had raised with me about case work at Duncan Lewis suffering from their putting too much responsibility in the hands of paralegals who lacked proper training and supervision. Adam responded that with something in the region of 20,000 clients there is going to be a much higher level of dissatisfaction than with the smaller organisations who people have generally not heard about. He insisted that Duncan Lewis are committed to providing a quality service and have a complaints procedure which can be followed if people believe that they have received a poor service.

I have to say that if my case load was expanded to the point where my firm had 20,000 clients at a time when the Legal Services Commission is cutting the funding available to provide quality services I am sure that the Dump Flack & Co Campaign would be demonstrating against my firm. I have plenty of former clients who feel aggrieved at the way in which their cases ended up.

So what to conclude? Is Duncan Lewis the hyena type organisation depicted by the campaign and suggested by the grumblings that often follow the mention of their name? You may think I have been taken in but I don’t think so. They could easily have ignored me and the LCAP campaign. They could have arranged for someone else to put out some good publicity which would have shown up in Google searches against their name so as to counter the bad publicity created negative posts like mine. Instead they met with me, put their point of view across and answered my questions. They may have made some mistakes but seem committed to correcting these if given a chance.

The key problem facing all legal aid suppliers at the moment is the need to delegate as much as possible of our case work to unqualified (lower paid) support staff without the quality of the work being undermined. The way in which the Legal Services Commission is funding our services means that we have to delegate in this way. Organisations where specialists deal with all aspects of clients’ cases are going to go out of business. Without subsidy from alternative funding sources most Not For Profit Sector organisations would be unable to carry out legal aid work at all. Private Sector firms are closing down at an alarming rate.

Duncan Lewis on the other hand appear to have been able to come up with a solution to this problem which works as a business model and provides services to large numbers of people. However, the strong criticism which they have received indicates that they need to review their quality assurance systems such as training, supervision and a visible complaints procedure. At the same time anyone coming into contact with people who believe that they have been let down by Duncan Lewis should encourage them test those systems by making complaints to Duncan Lewis and if necessary to the Legal Complaints Service.

A further issue for Duncan Lewis which strikes me is that despite growing to be the biggest provider of civil legal aid services in the country they have been unable to create a positive brand which is recognised by the public. Shelter, for instance has been able to maintain its image as a trusted campaigning organisation whilst transforming itself into a similar organisation to Duncan Lewis in the area of housing law. I heard that Shelter have actually argued for a ratio of 8 paralegals to every 1 supervising solicitor whereas Duncan Lewis only adopt a 3:1 ratio. Whilst Shelter are widely recognised and respected most people know next to nothing about Duncan Lewis & Co. This provides a breeding ground for suspicion and hostility.

I think that it is important for Duncan Lewis to do more to engage with the public and in particular those who campaign around legal issues. If they did this then they would almost certainly find that organisations such as the London Coalition Against Poverty would be their allies in the struggle to meet the needs of the poorest and most vulnerable people and not antagonists.