Legal advice
Sir: It is gratifying that Custos (' Legal advice,' December 23, 1972) takes such serious notice of a press statement from the national office of the Citizens' Advice Bureaux. Certainly our 550 bureaux and their million and a half annual inquiries can produce solid evidence of social trends and the bureaux' anxiety at the prospect of the withdrawal of the Law Society's voluntary legal advice scheme is very real. They are convinced from their experience that the voluntary scheme will be sorely missed for its sheer simplicity, and still very much hope that the Law Society will be able to encourage its members to operate it. Bureaux were asked whether the cost to the inquirer could be raised and the scheme still be valuable, and they forecast that if an increase from the present £1 for half an hour's advice were to go to anything over £2 then its use would fall sharply away. In other words, the need will remain and should somehow continue to be met at least until the £25 scheme has Proved itself simple and attractive enough to render the voluntary scheme redundant.
We have in common with others criticised the low income and capital limits for eligibility under the new Act and have reservations about remaining gaps in its coverage and about the ' £25 ' label already overtaken by inflation.
Custos is, of course, free to draw his own conclusions but I must seek to correct the impression he leaves that the Law Society is here behaving in some way shabbily. The Legal Advice and Assistance Act will probably bring about a considerable advance in making legal assistance acces
sible to the disadvantaged whilst at the same time claiming realistic remuneration for solicitors. The society is therefore consistent in saying that it cannot support the perpetuation of an unremunerative scheme. CABx for their part are not trying to claim that the present £1 is a realistic price. If it were, there would have been no need ever to have labelled the scheme "voluntary."
A. J. Leighton Chief Executive, National Citizens' Advice Bureaux Service, 26 Bedford Square, London WC1
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