Time running out for legal aid campaigners

Today is the deadline for reponses to Chris Grayling‘s proposals to slash a further £220m off the legal aid bill.

Never have I seen lawyers from all corners of the country so united against wholesale reform.

Last week, on the day of the Woolwich killing, 1,000 packed an auditorium in central London to rail at the plans. To mark the deadline many will turn up to demonstrate outside the Ministry of Justice today.

There have been angry letters, doomsday speeches and warnings of society’s most vulnerable being deprived justice.

Rolling in it?

Yet public sympathy is muted. Why? Partly because of the perception that in an age of austerity the legal profession is still rolling in it – the ones who doth protest a lot are wealthy QCs protecting their pockets.

But they have a genuine belief that where ever the minister choses to find the savings from a criminal legal aid bill of £1bn, justice will suffer.

They warn the system will be “decimated”: judicial reviews challenging public institutions will simply never happen, actions against government from overseas will not take place, trafficked children will not be protected.

Whether any of these fears come to pass or not, there is still a nagging question about what’s really driven up these costs.

After all, there are many cases where a government department refuses to admit defeat, uses all the tiers of the judicial system to fight on before being forced to cave in. That costs money too.