Law Direct online to replace legal aid?

An online NHS Direct for law, supported by 30 law centre-type operations in key areas around the country, should form the basis of a radical new approach to publicly funded legal services, according to Roger Smith of Justice, according to a legal futures article.

He said said the cuts introduced by the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 “slice so hard into the heart of legal aid” that the system needs to be radically reformed and rebuilt from the bottom up. This means starting with the interests of the person who has a problem, and forgetting the interests of the legal profession, he said. “The basic policy goal has surely to be that anyone in society, rich or poor, is entitled to expect that any dispute is settled on its own intrinsic legal merit and not by the extraneous issue of the different resources of the parties. We can call this equal justice under law.”

“Much existing internet advice is, frankly, little more than digital leaflets but there are the beginnings of attempts to use the Internet’s possibilities – for example, Co-op Legal Services and the work of firms like Epoq in combining document assembly programmes with telephone or video communication. How could the state inspire a good level of interactive information and advice using new technology? Can the public and the private work together in some way on the challenge of providing basic knowledge?”

While at the moment the government is proposing a commercially run telephone ‘hot line’ as the gateway for advice, “seemingly staffed by non-professionally trained call centre workers linked to a commercial organisation selling legal services”, Mr Smith asked: “Why is there no consideration of the provision of something like Legal Direct to replicate NHS Direct? If we cannot afford face-to-face services why can’t we put on the net a diagnostic alternative that provides everyone with a basic service? Perhaps we need a competitive innovation fund to kickstart provision.” (On this issue, it’s worth noting that the government has proposed to scrap NHS Direct already, and the costs for the service are in the region of £125million annually)

However, he recognised the ‘digital divide’ and that some people will not use the Internet. Thus he suggests 29 law centre type operations around the country in areas of the greatest deprivation in terms of use of the internet plus a national centre of excellence.

For the whole article, see Smith: put online NHS Direct for law at heart of radically reformed legal aid system