Authors:LAG
Created:2017-11-29
Last updated:2023-09-18
Law Society to take action on crime fee cut
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Marc Bloomfield
The Law Society announced on 28 November 2017 that it will launch a judicial review of the government’s decision to cut the fees paid for preparing criminal cases for trial. Remuneration under the litigators’ graduated fee scheme was due to be reduced from 1 December 2017 (Criminal Legal Aid (Remuneration) (Amendment) Regulations 2017 SI No 1019). In the most complex cases, the amount paid for reviewing pages of prosecution evidence was to fall by as much as 40 per cent.
Williamsons' Bill Waddington, chair of the Criminal Law Solicitors' Association, told Legal Action: ‘Practitioners everywhere welcome the Law Society’s support for them.’ He believes the proposed cut ‘is unsustainable and unjustifiable’.