Dear all

I would like to take this opportunity to respond to concerns on this e-group that the Law Society has somehow abandoned or forgotten about criminal practitioners in the settlement of the recent litigation. I would like to assure you that we have not.

Considering the litigation concerned the civil contract, it is inevitable that settlement had to focus primarily on the civil side. Nonetheless, there are things in the settlement that will be of benefit to crime providers - even those who do no civil work alongside their criminal practice:

The new SMP arrangements
The right to do remainder work
The minimum 6 month delay in BVT
The review of CCA processes
The review of peer review and quality assurance
The end of the LSC's right to rewrite existing contracts

Alongside the work on the litigation, we have been engaged in tough negotiations with the LSC on the new crime contract from July 2008. We did argue that the contract should not be introduced at all just yet, but that argument was rejected, so we were faced with either doing nothing or fighting for the best deal we could get for you. The most significant change is that there are no longer any financial penalties for late submission of bills. We have also knocked back the attempt to introduce new KPIs, and resisted a move to get Duty Solicitors to act for clients awaiting the decision on their legal aid application. We have secured a number of additional minor improvements from the original draft as well, full details of which we will be putting up on our website next week.

We have also just spent three months pulling together a strong response to the LSC consultation on best value tendering. In our response, with the help of external economic consultants, we have challenged the LSC's assumptions and demonstrated the major flaws at the heart of their proposals. Assuming there is a further consultation on BVT, we will respond to that in just as robust a manner.

We are working hard to represent the interests of all legal aid practitioners across all subject areas, and will continue to do so. In some instances, such as BVT, the focus will be mainly on crime, and to the exclusion of civil and family practitioners. In others, such as the litigation, the focus will be more on the civil and family side. But we will always do all we can to achieve the most we can for everyone.

Finally, I would like to stress that we do not see this settlement as the solution to all the problems facing legal aid. It is a good deal - the best we could get with the leverage of the litigation. But we well understand the major problems firms still face on a daily basis. There is an enormous amount of work still to be done. I and my team will continue to do all we can on behalf of the profession and your clients.

Kind regards,

Richard Miller