“What is the prospect of using legal aid lawyers’ experiences in the political field?”
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Everyone doing social welfare law makes a real difference to other people’s lives with every case and every piece of advice.
Even the most mundane of cases – judged by what legal aid lawyers consider ‘normal’ – has the effect of helping someone avoid a genuine difficulty. Many cases are life-changing, certainly when you consider the impact on everyday mental health that a successful resolution can achieve. Even an unsuccessful case involves working through a hostile system with your client. At the very worst, the person seeking advice should come out with a better understanding of what was going on and the decision-making processes to which they had been subjected.
So, every case has a social policy aspect to it, something that is all too easily lost in the pressure to close a matter and move on to the next one; the pressure to confine our actions to legal processes rather than to spend time considering the wider implications.
In an interview in 2014, while still skirting around his desire to become Mayor of London, legal aid lawyer Sadiq Khan put his selection as an MP like this:
When you’re a lawyer doing a good job, your cases can set precedents. And that precedent improves the quality of life not just for your client but, if you’re lucky, dozens and maybe hundreds of people. But if you are a legislator, let alone in the executive, you have the ability to make laws that change the lives of millions. And if you can add to that being the MP of your neighbourhood – where you can represent your friends, your family – it was a once in a lifetime opportunity and I couldn’t say no to it.1Mary-Rachel McCabe, ‘Sadiq Khan: “I want to be the first justice secretary from Tooting”’, The Justice Gap, 13 March 2014. It stands to reason that lawyers will be well placed to become lawmakers. A Channel 4 factcheck after the 2017 general election found 11.1 per cent of MPs had been lawyers: that’s over 70 members of the House of Commons.
2Martin Williams, ‘FactCheck Q&A: how posh is parliament?’, Channel 4 News, 20 June 2017. This compares with a further 4.8 per cent in the charity/non-profit sector. For Law Centre lawyers, take your pick where you see yourself!
What is the prospect of using legal aid lawyers’ experience of tackling injustice and righting wrongs in the political field? It is fair to say that the past decade has not seen a parliament that has been kind to lawyers, the legal aid sector, not-for-profits or the many clients on whom they focus their services. Some notable exceptions among MPs grounded in legal aid have done some sterling work. But overall, those with experience of legal aid and social welfare rights are too few in number among the many whose experience of law has been to entrench privilege and disadvantage. With a general election due sometime over the course of 2024, it will be interesting to see how many legal aid lawyers seek a place to influence the legislation that has shaped their careers.
At the same time, social welfare lawyers should not overlook the role that they can play as local councillors – which has been my own route into politics. Local government is often understated in comparison with the endless chatter of national politics, yet it is where there is often more scope for quietly improving the lives of people living in the local area. My introduction to local councillors came through a chance meeting at a social event in the advice network. From talking to them, I heard that they used their positions to help ordinary people deal with real issues, with the aim of getting a practical result that mattered to them.
I realised this was the same thing I was doing as an advice worker, just with a different set of tools.
This is Douglas's last column for Legal Action after many years of writing for us. He has also stepped down from co-authoring our regular ‘Discrimination: update’. We would like to thank him for his valuable contribution to Legal Action and wish him the very best for the future.