This book is a major contribution to a topical area of political debate that will be essential reading for lawyers, advisers, politicians, academics, students and all those concerned with how we attain the goal of equal access to justice.

'Most people now feel that the legal system does not work for them. The vast majority of people on middle or low incomes are effectively denied access to justice.' Labour Party Access to Justice (1995)

The above quote is taken from Labour's 1995 statement of policies on legal services and civil justice. Legal aid in England and Wales is at a crossroads. The decisions to be made will form a new approach dictated by the dual, and largely conflicting, pressures of extending democratic access to the law and legal services and the restraining of state expenditure.

Justice: redressing the balance examines how a new government might reform the provision of publicly funded legal services and the role of courts into a form of community legal service envisaged by the Labour Party. It advocates reform of the Legal Aid Board and the Lord Chancellor's Department as a means of furthering the aims of equal access to justice.

Following on from the influential A Strategy for Justice, published by LAG in 1992, Justice: redressing the balance establishes a statement of principles that should underlie policy before looking at the history of publicly funded legal services since 1945. With coverage of the conflicting administrative and practitioner agendas inherent in the establishment of a community legal service, the text outlines an approach which would extend services to those of poor and middle incomes combined with control of state expenditure.