On 28 September 2023, Young Legal Aid Lawyers (YLAL) kicked off the academic year with ‘Introduction to Legal Aid’, an online event that was expertly chaired by our founder, Dr Laura Janes. It was fantastic to see the level of interest from our membership and beyond, with the event selling out its 100 places in two hours.

We were fortunate to have a fantastic panel of speakers who provided attendees with insight into what it is like to work in legal aid and their motivation for doing so. We are grateful to Sir Robin Knowles CBE, who opened the evening with an address about the impact that legal work has on the lives of ordinary people.

Attendees were given a great look at the many options available to those hoping to pursue a career in areas of law that have traditionally been covered by legal aid. Our panellists also gave an honest appraisal of the increasing difficulties of working in the sector as it becomes less and less sustainable due to cuts in funding and scope, along with practical advice on how to navigate through the system.

As well as focusing on the current reality of a career in legal aid, YLAL members have, like other contributors to this publication, been increasingly interested in proposals surrounding the idea of a National Legal Service (NLS).1See April 2023 Legal Action 10. The core ideas around improving access to early advice, ‘helping the person, not the case’, creating a presumption that matters are within scope unless excluded, and the provision of legal services within a co-ordinated system (as opposed to merely offering an ad hoc funding mechanism) are all compelling.

Panellist Poppy Bourke, a housing and public law solicitor from Hammersmith and Fulham Law Centre, spoke to attendees about the friction created by the perceived culture of refusal at the Legal Aid Agency (LAA). She described how the difficulty in obtaining funding in certain types of case can make it feel as though you are facing a second opponent. The idea of an NLS that removes some of this friction and allows lawyers to focus on their core roles is no doubt appealing in that respect.

YLAL hopes to hold a meeting with its members in the near future to contribute our own perspective on these proposals, with a particular focus on changes that need to take place at the ‘junior end’ of the sector. Key to any legal aid reform is urgent action to address the crisis in recruitment and retention. Multiple contributors to the Society of Labour Lawyers’ recent paper, Towards a National Legal Service: new visions for access to justice (September 2023), acknowledge this, with the Law Centres Network highlighting the dwindling workforce in civil legal aid as the ‘single most important vulnerability’ (page 7).The same is arguably true for criminal legal aid.

We’re proud to be doing our bit to address the challenge of recruitment and retention through the Social Welfare Solicitors Qualification Fund (SWSQF), which we run in partnership with the City of London Law Society and BARBRI. The SWSQF was first launched in 2021 and opened for applications for a third year on 19 October. SWSQF covers the costs for social welfare lawyers working in legal aid to study for and sit the Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE). SWSQF has, thus far, been a success as, despite the steep learning curve that has come with the SQE, our first SWSQF cohort have all passed SQE 1.

SWSQF tackles one of the significant barriers that aspiring social welfare lawyers face – the cost of qualification, which many of our counterparts in corporate law simply don’t need to worry about (given that corporate firms offer often lucrative maintenance bursaries) – and in doing so tries to ensure that a career in legal aid is accessible.

However, while we hope SWSQF goes from strength to strength and continues to act as a model of good practice, it is neither designed nor intended to address the systemic issues in recruitment and retention. This is something that requires investment at scale and proper management by government.

While a recently launched (September) training grant scheme offered to Housing Loss Prevention Advice Service providers shows some very small positive movement in this regard, it was disappointing to see organisations given so little time to prepare for these posts, some adverts listed with application windows of two weeks and with almost immediate start dates. Any pilot or even small sample scheme that underperforms risks doing more harm than good if the LAA’s inference is that there isn’t the interest or capacity within the sector – rather than there simply being a need for proper implementation.

We know that the demand and desire to become a social welfare lawyer is there among students and others starting out on their career journeys. A government that claims to be serious about making legal aid sustainable must be serious about removing the multiple barriers stymieing that interest.