Pro bono, confusion and funding gaps – mixed messages as Gove meets City firms to discuss a law firm levy

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Was it a progressive discussion about boosting pro bono and One Nation values, or an opportunistic attempt to tap the commercial legal profession to fill a funding gap? Or both?

That remains unclear to many of the participants in a packed meeting on Monday (26 October) morning at Clifford Chance’s (CC) Canary Wharf offices between justice secretary Michael Gove (pictured) and a group of leading commercial law firms amid plans floated by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) to impose some form of levy on City law firms to fund the courts.

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Value added: report rebuffs presumptions about judicial review

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While UK Prime Minister David Cameron has led a recent attack over judicial review decisions and the cost of the process, a new report has found that restrictions to legal aid have harmed the process, judicial review itself has led to improved services by public bodies and clarified the law in 86% of cases.

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So much for the Global Law Summit – Gove floats £60m-plus tax on City law firms to fund criminal courts

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New Justice secretary Michael Gove is set for a tussle with City lawyers after floating a plan to impose a multi-million pound tax on commercial law firms to pay for the abolition of a controversial criminal court charge on guilty defendants.

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Fragmented and naïve: the profession’s failure to penetrate Whitehall

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Two pieces this month touch on a common theme: the profession’s failure to influence government. The first touches on the policy issues that have most commonly put the profession into conflict with government: the provision of legal aid, in our coverage of the unprecedented strike by publicly-funded lawyers. In the second, in our Global 100 debate, Slaughter and May’s Nigel Boardman rightly highlights the profession’s glaring lack of influence in shaping business law, while senior figures cite mounting concerns over the future of the judiciary and courts.

The UK profession’s lack of clout has long been bizarre. English law has huge influence globally both in terms of foreign businesses deploying it and choosing English lawyers and courts but also in terms of soft power. The UK is a global leader in legal services, home to the world’s second-largest legal market and a substantial contributor to exports and tax revenues.

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Striking out – a desperate profession and the politics of legal aid

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It’s over two years since the government announced its controversial next wave of cuts to legal aid. As resentment this year exploded into an unprecedented strike, Legal Business assesses the anger and professional horse-trading.

‘A revolution requires willing fighters with nothing to lose. There may be plenty of legal aid practitioners who fit this description. Revolution also requires a reasonable level of popular support. It is unclear whether the unity of the profession remains sufficiently robust or whether the movement as a whole has the energy it did two years ago. At this early stage, next steps are uncertain. The profession may choose conciliation, combat or a mixture of both – but, with little leverage left, whichever option it selects it must be totally committed to it.’
Tom Smith, The Justice Gap, 2015

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