Andrew was the natural choice for chair of LAG. He had an excellent sense of humour, but ensured that clear decisions were made at committee meetings. Sometimes quite a challenge! At the time LAG was founded, there was considerable tension between The Law Society, which was then responsible for running legal aid and by whom I was employed to liaise with advice agencies, and the newly established Law Centres, and there were regular battles about the grant of waivers of the Solicitors’ Practice Rules that tended to support the status quo, ie, private practice. Law Centres understandably wanted to publicise their services to a section of the public who rarely thought of consulting a solicitor, but the Practice Rules made it difficult for new firms, let alone a Law Centre, to do so.

Andrew had good contacts with The Law Society and especially with Gerald Sanctuary, then responsible for the Society’s public relations and who appreciated the need for a less restrictive outlook towards Law Centres.

Born as the second world war was breaking out, Andrew was inspired by the common purpose of the war years and the welfare state legislation of the 1945 Labour government.

By the late 1960s, the need to go further with legal services reform than Labour’s Legal Aid and Advice Act of 1949 was becoming apparent. Although publicly funded, legal aid was administered by The Law Society, which, at the time, put the interests of its members first. Geographical coverage was patchy. Although Law Centres were making small beginnings, general availability of publicly funded services was determined by the presence, or often the absence, of private practitioners, dependent on conveyancing, probate and commercial work. Solicitors had little or no expertise in wider housing law, welfare benefits or public law.

I met Andrew Phillips when I joined the LAG committee as a Law Centre representative soon after its formation. He was one of a group of giants who founded the organisation. He expected high performance, rigorous argument and strictly non-political behaviour – no cheap sniping at governments, however wicked. He was strong on the need for the fledgling organisation to raise sufficient income from its activities to be independent of grant aid – something that operated as a commendable incentive when I subsequently became director.

He brought the expectation that LAG would be listened to at the centre of power. And he had considerable legal hinterland to assist this. His work with LAG was of a piece with his role in the establishment of the Solicitors Pro Bono Group and the Citizenship Foundation. Behind that was his credibility as the senior partner in the rising firm of Bates Wells & Braithwaite. His strength came very much from a combination of his commitment to justice and his membership of the legal and political establishment.

When I took up the position of LAG’s director almost 20 years ago, I was surprised and touched to find a note from Andrew on my desk, welcoming me to the new role. At a time when legal aid services were coming increasingly under threat, his support for LAG was both welcome and steadfast.

While not directly involved with LAG’s work while I was director, his influence was strong. His determination to stand up for access to justice for people unable to pay for lawyers was reflected in the range of organisations he founded and supported. LAG was followed some years later by the Citizenship Foundation and the Solicitors Pro Bono Group (now LawWorks). Together with his other work to support legal aid and legal empowerment, a significant network of organisations and individuals was established, in which LAG played an active role.

One example of this collaborative approach was the Public Legal Education and Support Task Force set up in 2006, of which LAG was a key member. Comprising an alliance of like-minded organisations, working with the then Department for Constitutional Affairs, it sought to improve access to justice and define a strategy for public legal education. This aim – to increase awareness of people’s legal rights and empower them to deal more effectively with legal problems – was one that was very close to Andrew’s heart.

While working for LAG, every few months I’d get a call from Andrew, wanting an update on what we were doing or to chew the fat over a policy or other issue. He was extremely proud about the role he’d played in founding LAG, but disappointed with the progress made in making the law more accessible to poor and disadvantaged people.

At the risk of speaking ill of the dead, I must admit we had our disagreements, especially while what was to become the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (LASPO) was before the House of Lords. Andrew could not bring himself to vote against the coalition government (he was a Liberal Democrat peer), though he did eventually abstain in a key vote. I believe he was deeply conflicted at the time between his commitment to access to justice and his political beliefs. A review of legal aid, which had led to LASPO, had been part of the coalition agreement between the Conservatives and the Lib Dems.

Such was his old-school charm, and above all his passion for the law and justice, that Andrew was a very difficult person to stay angry with for long. Soon after LASPO was passed, he invited me to meet him in the House of Lords in what turned out to be peace talks over a cream tea.

Andrew Phillips, as he then was, was one of the four lawyers who called the meeting that led to the formation of Legal Action Group. When I was interim director of LAG for two years (2019–21), we invited Lord Phillips to our events and he was extremely proud of the role he had played and that LAG was doing such good work 50 years later. He invited me to tea at the House of Lords and took a very keen interest in what LAG was doing and our plans for the future.

Lord Clement-Jones said of Lord Phillips, in a House of Lords debate in 2010:

I had the pleasure of interviewing Andrew in 2017, as LAG marked its 45th anniversary, and then meeting him again when he spoke at LAG’s 50th anniversary celebrations. I loved hearing that LAG started after Andrew wrote a letter, published in the Law Society Gazette, about the ‘shambolic state of legal aid’, which caused the meeting of lawyers, that created a meeting of minds, that founded LAG. It takes an inspirational person like Andrew to plant a seed for change that others can rally behind.

Passionate is a word that tends to be overused but in Andrew’s case it was exactly what he was – passionate about access to justice. One of the original social justice warriors (before we even knew there was such a thing), he went on to open many doors to the future for so many. I loved hearing about his stint on the radio with Jimmy Young as the ‘legal eagle’, and know that he would have done this with his usual flair, energy and enthusiasm. Although he left the LAG committee after 10 years, he was a fierce supporter for over half a century.