Family legal aid project
Our new project on family legal aid is looking at the changing conditions of work for family legal aid barristers. We will produce a report giving details about the experience of working life for barristers, highlighting key challenges and issues, and presenting policy recommendations.
We’d like to hear from you if you are a barrister who has or who is currently practising in family legal aid work.
Background
We know that structures of work and remuneration around publicly funded legal work have changed considerably. Real spending per person on legal aid has reduced by almost 40% between 2009/10 and 2022/23. Many areas of advice have been taken out of scope, and changes to the means testing for areas still in scope mean that most people can no longer access legal aid funding for their legal issues. Coupled with real term cuts in remuneration, these changes have had a profound impact on the civil and family legal services sector, including the Bar.
The National Audit Office’s report Government’s management of legal aid (09 February 2024) stated that:
“MoJ has not increased fees for civil cases since 1996, and it reduced fees by 10% between October 2011 and February 2012. In real terms, fees are now approximately half what they were 28 years ago.”
Since 2012, we have consistently called for a targeted re-introduction of legal aid. Most of our research and representation has been on criminal legal aid fees mainly due to it being the largest area of legal aid provision, but also because it is an area of work where people’s liberty can be at stake.
In recent months and years, we have increasingly spoken about civil and family publicly funded work. We produced an interview-based report on civil legal aid work in early 2021 and have contributed significantly to the review of civil legal aid (RoCLA) primarily through data analysis.
Our 2024 submission to RoCLA identified the following broad problems with the current regime for family legal aid:
- Scope and grant of legal aid
- Low fees
- Growing level of unpaid work
- System of payment
- Impact on the Bar
- Impact on justice
- Downstream problems
Purpose and aim
We would like to explore these challenges in greater detail, specifically with examples of how and to what degree they impact on the working lives and work-life balance of barristers, and on the justice outcomes for their clients.
From the data we already have, we are anticipating a lot of conversations about the tension between fee income and case volume, and also on how this impacts work-life balance and wellbeing. However, we are open to discussion on any theme.
Invitation to participate
From 31 March 2025, we will arrange initial one-to-one interviews with a representative group of around 30 to 40 barristers. We aniticipate that each interview will last 30 to 45 minutes. Then, likely in June 2025, we will hold subsequent focus groups with a further 30 to 40 barristers. We would like to hear from you if you are a:
- Barrister who currently undertakes family legal aid work
- Barrister who formerly carried out family legal aid work
Contact the project team if you have any questions at: [email protected]
Please note that we need to interview a representative group (in terms of circuit, experience and case type) so we may not be able to interview everyone who expresses an interest. There will be further opportunity to participate in the focus group stage of the project (likely to be in early June 2025).
Your involvement
For interviews:
- We will send you a list of questions in advance so you have time to consider and prepare. We’ll schedule a one-hour interview with a member of our team at a mutually convenient time
- The interview will be conducted in a relaxed, conversational style between you and the interviewer. It can be online or in person according to your preference. It will be recorded for the purposes of transcription
- Following the interview, we’ll be in touch with a copy of the transcription for your editorial input. You will be able to choose whether your transcript is anonymous or attributable to you
For focus groups:
- We will be in touch for the purposes of scheduling in advance. The focus groups will be held online and organised thematically (examples may include, young Bar, or those who no longer do legal aid work, etc)
- The focus groups will be chaired by a senior family barrister. They will consist of approximately 10 barristers discussing questions on set themes. They will be held under Chatham House Rule. A member from our team will be in attendance to take notes
Other ways you can participate:
- Anyone who wishes to contribute but would prefer not to take part in an interview or focus group can submit a written response. We can send you a list of questions to consider. You can choose whether your contribution is anonymous or attributable
- If you have been involved in the interview phase of the project, you will be sent a confidential draft copy of the report for your pre-approval in advance of publication
Confidentiality
We recognise that in choosing to participate in this project you may be sharing professionally and personally sensitive information. We will treat this data in confidence and it will not be shared or accessible by anyone other than the researchers on this project.
Our default position for participants in this project is anonymity, and you can choose whether you wish to make your comments attributable. We will not include any direct quotes from our interviews or focus groups or any verbatim extracts from any written contributions in any of the project’s written outputs without your consent. If attributed, we’ll share the relevant drafts with you for approval before releasing them to the profession.
If you have any questions, we are happy to discuss them with you, please get in touch via [email protected].