Preface
Our thanks as always to Esther Pilger, Steve Hynes and Nim Moothy from Legal Action Group (LAG). Their continuing support for the Handbook and its online companion is much appreciated. Our particular gratitude goes to Esther, who over almost a decade as our editor on the Handbook, and its predecessor, has kept up with the last minutes changes and uncertainties inevitable in legal aid. As ever, we are also grateful for the contribution made by our long-suffering families who have supported us as we wrote and edited this book.
We should like to thank all those who commented on the last edition of the Handbook and provided ideas for this update, as well as those who commented or emailed us via the website.
We are delighted that Tony Edwards continues to lend his vast experience and expertise to the crime chapters, now supplemented by his own Criminal costs, another indispensable LAG book. We welcome back our regular contributors Solange Valdez-Symonds and Richard Charlton, whose accounts of the immigration and mental health schemes greatly strengthen the Handbook. For this edition we’re very pleased to be joined by Katie Brown on housing, and of course that Steve Hynes has contributed his usual authoritative survey of the policy scheme.
We have endeavoured to give as complete an account of the civil legal aid scheme as at 1 April 2017 as we can. The crime chapters cover the new criminal legal aid contracts coming into force from that date.
Any errors or omissions are, of course, our responsibility.
The Handbook’s supporting website,
www.legalaidhandbook.com, will continue to be used for updates, news alerts and other material of interest, and readers can sign up to receive updates and alerts. Readers can also follow us on Twitter @legalaidhbk.
We should welcome comments on the
LAG Legal Aid Handbook 2017/18 as we want to make it as relevant and useful to legal aid practitioners as we can, and readers can contact us at
admin@legalaidhandbook.com or via Legal Action Group at
lag@lag.org.uk.
Once again, our final thanks go to the readers of the Handbook, those hard-pressed but dedicated legal aid lawyers determined to do their best for their clients in difficult times. We hope we have made your task a little easier.
Vicky Ling and Simon Pugh
March 2017