Fears over proposed legal aid cuts in Britain cast a shadow over the tenth anniversary of National Pro Bono Week
LONDON (TrustLaw) – Fears over proposed legal aid cuts have cast a shadow over the tenth anniversary of National Pro Bono Week, amid government plans to end assistance for more than half a million civil and family law cases each year.
Leading lawyers say pro bono work - free legal help for those who cannot afford to pay - cannot fill the gaps for a massive decline in legal support from the government.
The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill, now in the hands of the House of Lords, the upper chamber of Britain’s parliament, would cut legal aid from civil areas including immigration, housing, employment and debt, unless a person’s life, home or freedom was at risk.
The government has suggested pro bono work could help cover shortfalls created by the cuts, which are designed to reduce legal aid costs by 350 million pounds ($560mln) within four years.
But many lawyers have disagreed vehemently, pointing out that law firms that do pro bono would not have the expertise to represent legal aid clients alone.
The Law Society, which represents solicitors, has urged the government to reconsider the plans which it has called “ill-conceived and unfair”.
It says the bill would end legal aid for 645,000 civil and family law cases every year.
“Despite an unwavering commitment of the legal profession to pro bono work, it will never be able to compensate for significant gaps that will result from reductions in legal aid,” the charity ProBonoUK said on its website.
ANNIVERSARY
A decade on since the country’s first Pro Bono Week, significant progress has been made in the field.
A plethora of new schemes, trusts and networks – including the National Pro Bono Centre, the International Pro Bono Database and the London Legal Support Trust – have popped up across the country over the last 10 years.
Research by the Law Society this year showed just under half of solicitors in a private practice had undertaken pro bono work in the previous 12 months, amounting to an average of 55 hours each, ProBonoUK added.
The value of this work is an estimated 518 million pounds. One can add to this the pro bono work of barristers, legal executives and law students.
“Pro bono work is nothing new. Lawyers have been volunteering their services for free to help those in need since time immemorial,” Lord Peter Goldsmith, Britain's chief legal adviser between 2001 and 2007, was quoted as saying on the website.
“However, over the last decade, there has been a paradigm shift in efforts to coordinate pro bono activity and work collaboratively across the legal profession, with the voluntary sector, with other professionals, in England and Wales and across the globe,” added Goldsmith, now chairman of European and Asian litigation at U.S.-based law firm Debevoise & Plimpton LLP.
Pro bono opportunities for students are improving, with 65 percent of law schools in England and Wales having offered pro bono opportunities in 2010, up from 46 percent in 2006.
Topics under discussion at this year’s Pro Bono Week events include pro bono and healthcare, ways of supporting the third sector, international pro bono, and the next decade of pro bono.
See also: FACTBOX-Planned UK legal aid cuts pressure pro bono
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