Following its successful appeal in IS in the Court of Appeal, the LAA announced that it would no longer fund cases that were "poor" or "borderline". We questioned at the time whether it could lawfully take such an approach before the regulations that set out the merits tests were amended. Amending regulations have now been laid and come into force on 22nd July. However, the LAA has changed its policy in the last month. Funding for "borderline" cases will now remain in place in much the same way as before. But where cases categorised as "poor" but not "very poor" would be funded pre-IS, from 22nd July they won't be. A new category of "marginal" prospects of success has been created for cases where prospects are 45% or above, which will be funded with the same stricter criteria that apply to borderline cases. "Poor" now means below 45%, and those cases drop out of funding. If you didn't apply for funding in a borderline or marginal case because of the LAA's erroneous announcement last month, it will now be worth doing so. The new criteria don't apply to any cases where the initial application was made before 22nd July 2016. More on the LAA site here.