Listen carefully: jeopardising legal advice services is reckless

http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2013/jan/23/jeopardising-legal-advice-services-reckless

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"Listen carefully and try to understand." Speaking as a parent, it's the kind of futile, non-advice I try hard to avoid dispensing to my eight and 10-year old daughters. But there it is in guidance published by the judiciary last week for a new generation of self-represented litigants.

It's not that the guide written by Mr Justice Foskett itself is bad, it isn't - and such initiatives need to be supported and encouraged. But, it frankly it isn't great. There is plenty of sensible, practical advice but there is little feeling for the experience of the litigant, no illustrative examples to assist their understanding and it's written in an overly legalistic language. Really, mentions of "sub-paragraphed propositions" and "paginated bundle" (sounds painful ...) shouldn't have made it passed an editor. I'm willing to bet a fiver that the guide wasn't read by a non-lawyer before going to press.

In a decision that is as outrageous as it is tediously predictable, the Legal Services Commission (LSC) last week pulled the plug on what's known as the Community Legal Services (CLS) grant. The Royal Courts of Justice Citizens Advice Bureau, set up in 1978 specifically to help those unlucky enough to find themselves before the courts without a lawyer, is one of three organisations funded by the £655,317 grant.

Last year the service dealt with 19,552 people for 2011/12, up from 10,000 – and this is before the cuts kick in on April 1st. The CLS grant is worth £250,000 to the bureau and represents about 25% of its total funding – and a much higher proportion of that part of its service aimed at litigants in person.

Legal aid cuts mean the courts are going to have to deal with the frustrations of unrepresented litigants in unprecedented numbers. As well as scrapping much of what is known as social welfare law, the legal aid act ends funding for family law (except where there is evidence of domestic violence) - on the government's own figures there were 53,800 cases last year where people received representation before the courts on legal aid scheme (a further 211,000 family cases where people received initial advice and assistance).

A Civil Justice Council report on self-represented litigants last year said that those going before the courts without lawyers faced a system of "real quality" but "one designed for lawyers" and which was "far too complex and obscure for those representing themselves".

The courts simply aren't equipped for these pressures. I flagged up a new report calling our court forms and guidance "the worst set of public documents I've ever seen" last month.

The rather condescending edict ("... try to understand"), no doubt meant well, speaks volumes about the relationship between the courts and their users – the problem is you, not us. It explains why the cuts are likely to cause so much chaos on a court service that is "designed for lawyers".

By the way, did I mention that the CLS grant ends on March 31st – the day before the cuts in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act (Laspo) come in? "The Ministry of Justice has the responsibility for self-represented litigants," Alison Lamb, director of the RCJ's CAB told me last week. "At a time when their numbers are to increase beyond belief, it seems foolish to put the organisation with the expertise and skills at working with that cohort of people at risk."

Quite, but the MoJ seems to have no intention of honouring any such commitment. According to the LSC consultation, the fate of self-represented litigants is "an ongoing priority for the wider MoJ" but "we have taken the view that this is not core work for the LSC". As the LSC becomes the Legal Aid Agency, part of the MoJ, at the start of April, it is a meaningless distinction.

The CAB is applying for support from a £65m advice services transition fund to help not-for-profit social welfare advice providers being run by the Cabinet Office.

Jeopardising a service like RCJ's CAB at a time on the eve of the implementation Laspo cuts is reckless. The CLS grants funding provides the infrastructure for a major pro bono initiative with involves some 170 lawyers on an advice rota backed by 60 firms and 40 family lawyers. Seven City firms provide £50,000 a year.

Will the City, through its pro bono activities, bail out this much-needed service? "It is a myth to think that the City firms will just step in. It just won't happen," says Lamb. I was at the bureau last week to find out more about an online case management tool - called CourtNav and backed by the City firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer.

CourtNav is just the kind of innovative project urgently needed to assist the new post-Laspo generation of self-represented litigants. The idea is to guide users through the legal process under the supervision of advisers; provide advice and warnings to DIY lawyers; assist with completing forms; and allow for those forms to be checked by advisers. A divorce module has been funded to the tune of £75,000 by the MoJ.

As Freshfields' head of pro bono Paul Yates points out, failures in services risk the commitment from firms like his – rather than encourage them to step forward. As he puts it: "We have already seen this when law centres have folded – pro bono activity goes through a law centre – and so when an organisation like Law For All goes down it means less pro bono help for individuals who can't afford to pay for it."

The authors of last year's CJC report quoted Lord Justice Carnwath, former senior president of tribunals, saying that it "should never be forgotten that tribunals exist for users, and not the other way round".

It is a sentiment that policy-makers and the judiciary need to listen to. They need to listen very careful and try to understand.