I came across an article in the Gazette this week with the headline: Judge issues pre-trial legal aid plea after mother left alone The article refers to this judgment of DJ Keating: London Borough of Sutton v A mother & Anor [2025] EWFC 147 (B) (bonus points to the Gazette for linking to it). The judgment is a final decision in care proceedings, and the first 97 paragraphs are the main decision and conclusion (the child was to remain living with extended family due to deficiencies in the mother's parenting). The article isn't about those, but is about the last 3 paragraphs, appearing under the heading 'other matters'. They are so short I'll repeat them in full: Other matters 98. I was told that M did not have the benefit of a conference with counsel to help prepare for what was a 4 day long contested final hearing.  I am told that was because her lawyers had asked the legal aid agency to pay for 3 conferences, two of which took place at Court at an early stage of the proceedings,...

I know we're not supposed to mention fees. It's crass to talk about money - that's what clerks are for and all that. But now, it seems, we are expected to keep calm and carry on without any expectation of prompt payment of fees at all. An unspecified amount on an unspecified date. Many legal aid lawyers would say this has been the case for a long while now, so erratic is the legal aid payment system, but at least there was a process and a rule book. And in fact FAS claims, at least, were reasonably efficient. Now, as a result of the hacking of the Legal Aid Agency's systems, they can't see how much we are owed, can't accept new claims, and can't pay us. For an indefinite period of time, now acknowledged to be the situation for the foreseeable future. Here's the message we all got last week: It is unlikely that all services will be fully resolved in the short-term. As such we are now refining further plans for contingency, in the event that the need for contingency continues beyond...

Two judgments have been circulating this week which reflect very badly on lawyers, or at any rate on two individual lawyers. I’ve been thinking a lot about them. They are uncomfortable reading for any lawyer and for any person who cares about justice. Because justice depends upon competence and ethics of lawyers and these judgments remind us that neither is a given. Though my 20 plus years of experience reassures me that the vast majority of lawyers are both good at what they do and trustworthy, there are exceptions and it’s simply no good to pretend otherwise. I speak from recent, depressing experience.   Sometimes a lawyer is a perfectly good lawyer but just out of their depth in the particular case, or overburdened and overwhelmed through no fault of their own – these lawyers need more support and more experience. That support might be from line managers or from other more experienced colleagues, it might involve formal training, mentoring, support to help manage workloads,...