Introduction
3.1When a client approaches you with a legal problem, there are a number of considerations to bear in mind in deciding whether you can take the case. These include:
•Is the case within the scope of the legal aid scheme?
•Must the client go through the telephone gateway?
•Is it covered by your contract?
•If you need to provide advice rather than going straight to court proceedings, do you have sufficient matter starts to be able to take it?
•Is the client financially eligible?
•Does the client’s case pass the merits test?
•Is there any other reason why you cannot take it?
Only if the case passes all these tests can it be taken on.
3.3Many organisations stopped providing legal aid in categories of law when the 2010 contracts were replaced with 2013 contracts, most obviously due to scope cuts. These are being dealt with under the remainder work provisions of the 2013 contract.
32013 Contract – Civil Standard Terms 26.11. The 2010 contract required practitioners to confirm these cases were unlikely to continue for more than two years, and most remainder work cases are likely to have finished in that time. Cases that continued past the two-year point required the LAA to consider reasonably whether further work should be authorised.
In this chapter we will mainly refer to the provisions of the 2013 contract, as that is the one that governs most civil cases. But (unless we say otherwise) there are equivalent rules in the other civil contracts.