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Legal News

Legal aid lawyers (27 November 2012)

Date: 27/11/2012
Duncan Lewis, Legal News Solicitors, Legal aid lawyers

Legal aid had originally started on the concept of “right to counsel” and “right to a fair trial” movement in the 19th Century continental European countries where poor people who could not afford had their fees waived or the courts provided them with solicitors.
Initially the idea was that lawyers would provide legal services on pro bono basis meaning working without charging any fees. It left poor clients dependant on the charity of lawyers but most countries went on to establish laws to provide reasonable fees to duty solicitors or legal aid solicitors. But to control the demand lawyer costs were given only for cases where a lawyer was required.
In UK the concept of welfare state has its own history and the Government provides funding for eligible people, who cannot afford to litigate due to lack of funding, in areas such as criminal law, family law, immigration law and housing law.
Legal aid lawyers assist with government funding and are paid for their assistance by the Legal Services Commission after being provided with detailed notes about each and every piece of work that has been undertaken by them.
It is normal to for the legal aid lawyers needing the client to sign on forms at different stages of the case in order to forward the same to the Legal Service Commission for fees disbursement.
It would also be pertinent to note that a client who wins his or her case after having received legal aid help from the government they may have to pay back the fees to the Legal Service Commission.
But it is not relevant to some types of law like immigration law where a case would not fetch any compensation to the client but in family law cases the client winning could be receiving some financial award and then the client may have to return the legal aid fees he or she would have received.
Most legal aid lawyers would first make an application to the Legal Services Commission who would decide whether the client should receive legal aid or not. But some legal aid firms make the decision on whether they should take up the case without first taking the approval of the Legal Services Commission, though they will have to endorse their decision on the clients file.
To take up the risk of not referring first to the Legal Services Commission your case need to be worthwhile with reasonable chance of success and the cost of funding the case must be worth the eventual expected or desired outcome.

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