The Legal Voice website reports that out of 241 cases originally listed, 15 trials and 42 other matters were adjourned.
A representative for the north circuit - which accounts for locations from Carlisle to Chester, including Manchester and Liverpool – said an ‘overwhelming majority’ of its members attended a meeting to discuss a response to the Transforming Legal Aid proposals and QASA.
Maximum profit
Meanwhile, Russell Fraser, pupil barrister and joint secretary of the Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers wrote in the in the New Statesman that the new system will only allow ‘warehouse’ law firms to exist while high street firms will ‘either die or be absorbed by large corporations intent on delivering legal services cheaply for maximum profit’.
Mr Fraser went on to add: ‘The future will be one in which suspects are apprehended by G4S investigators, transported by G4S security, detained by G4S officers and imprisoned in G4S jails – at each stage represented by G4S lawyers.’
Serious action
The presiding judge of the north circuit, Mr Justice Holroyde, said that the meeting did not provide a ‘sufficiently good reason’ for court hearings not to proceed, while the Ministry of Justice said it would be ‘disappointing’ if courts were disrupted as it ‘would not help’ lawyers.
The Law Society, the representative body of lawyers in England and Wales, said that solicitors should continue to work with the consultation for now, but did not rule out ‘more serious action’ later on.
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