Fewer lawyers taking legal aid could lead to justice issues, lawyers say

Wednesday, 21 December 2016

Lawyers are worried at the increasing number of their colleagues dropping out of taking legal aid cases.

The number of lawyers willing to take legal aid cases has dropped by a quarter in less than five years, with one predicting the trend could require the state to provide lawyers in place of private ones.

The latest legal aid figures released by the Ministry of Justice show $137 million was paid in legal aid in the 2015/16 year.

While up on the previous year's $130m, it is down on the $160m paid out in 2011/12.

Legal aid assists people with insufficient means to access legal representation, with the Government paying the fees of private lawyers.

* Taranaki lawyers concerned access to justice will be limited by shutting legal aid offices

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Not all the money paid out ends up in lawyers' pockets, as it is also used to cover costs such as expert witnesses, medical reports and interpreters.

Data complied by the New Zealand Law Society from the ministry's figures shows there was a 26 per cent decline in the number of legal aid lawyers in that time, ending with 1852 lawyers accepting legal aid work.

Big changes have been made to the legal aid system in that time, including taking away defendant's rights to pick their own lawyer for more minor offences, and the onus being put on parents to resolve custody disputes out of the Family Court.

Upper Hutt barrister Michael Bott, who received $88,483 in legal aid in the past year, said lawyers were not getting rich on the scheme.

'The public are sold on the idea that lawyers are on the legal aid gravy train. That's nonsense.

'My accountants continually tell me to stop taking legal aid and go completely private.'

Getting a legal aid assignment some distance from the office could end up costing money in travel and lost work time, he said.

'People forget that there is the cost of running a business, training and paying taxes and GST.'

Senior criminal lawyers retiring or deciding not to take legal cases anymore, combined with fewer young lawyers doing the required training to take legal aid cases, would inevitably leave a crack for defendants to fall through, Bott said.

'There are lawyers who, out of a social conscious, take these cases.

'Legal aid is deemed to be a loan to be paid back, and people are reluctant to take on debt, so then you end up with more self-represented defendants.'

Those defendants would invariably take up more court time, or suffer a miscarriage of justice, which costs the taxpayer money in different ways, he said.

It was not hard to imagine a situation where all legally aided criminal work was done by the Government-run Public Defence Service, Bott said.

Tony Thackery, a principal at Opie and Dron in Palmerston North - a firm granted $273,547 in legal aid last year - said he had not noticed a drop off locally in lawyers taking criminal legal aid cases.

However, the Family Court shake-up had changed things.

His legal aid workload used to be a 40/60 split between family and criminal cases, but was now almost 100 per cent criminal cases, he said.

People wanting legal aid lawyers for Family Court hearings could have a hard time finding one, as many lawyers could not make enough money from the cases, he said.

While getting to a trial could result in more money, criminal lawyers on legal aid cases worked hard out of court to get a result for their clients which avoided the need for a trial, Thackery said.