Report of the Advisory Committee on Legal Advice and Assistance
| Published date | 01 July 1970 |
| Date | 01 July 1970 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1970.tb01285.x |
| Author | Rosalind Brooke |
REPORTS
OF
COMMITTEES
REPORT
OF
THE
ADVISORY
COMMITTEE
ON
LEGAL
ADVICE
m
ASSISTANCE
TWENTY-FIVE years after the publication
of
the Rushcliffe Report,'
twenty-one years after the passing of the Legal Aid and Advice Act
1949,
and
after
five years of
a
Labour Government, the Lord Chan-
cellor has been urged by
his
Advisory Committee
to
implement the
Rushcliffe recommendations enacted in the
1949
statute.g The
inadequacies
of
the statutory legal
aid
and advice scheme in the
field of legal advice and assistance have
been
well
known.
Peter
Benenson commented
on
this
in
1957,'
as
did Brian Abel-Smith and
Robert Stevens in
1967.'
The Widgery Report in
1966
discussed
the availability of criminal legal aid and advice.6 Since then the
Law Society," the Society of Labour Lawyers,' the Conservative
Lawyers,* the Child Poverty Action Group,, and
the
Cobdem Trust
have all pointed to
various
deficiencies in the statutory scheme and
made various recommendations. The list of people and organisations
is
wide-ranging: solicitors and barristers and judges, academic
lawyers, sociologists and social workers, representatives
of
the
most important of the legal profession's associations, and lawyers
of
varying political colour, have all urged that something should be
done and, in many cases, made sensible recommendations. But
it
is perhaps significant that little has been published formally by the
Bar Council,
or
by the National Citizens' Advice Bureaux Council,
either
on
deficiencies or how to remedy them.
The Advisory Committee has steered
a
middle way between
the proposals made by the Law Society, the Conservative and the
Labour Lawyers and has in fact adopted the principal recommen-
dations put forward by the Law Society in their second memoran-
dum.
In
their &st set of proposals the Law Society proposed
a
scheme whereby solicitors could do up to $25-worth of work, short
1
Report
of
the Committee
on
Legal Aid and Legal Advice
in
England and
Wales
f
Report
of
the Advimry Committee on the better provision
of
Legal Advice
3
Peter Benenson,
The Future
of
Legal Aid
(1957, Fabian Research Seriee 191).
4
B.
Abel-Smith and
R.
B.
Stevens,
Lawyers and the
Courts,
Chap.
1%
5
Report
of
the Departmental Committee
on
Legel Aid
in
Criminal Proceedings,
(1966,
H.M.S,O.
Cmnd. Chap. 6.
6
The
Law
Society,
Legal Advice and A88i8bnCe: Second
Momorandurn
of
the
Council
o
the Law Society,
1969.
Society ofhbonr Lawyers,
Justice
for
All
(1968,
Fsbian Research Series
273).
8
Conservative PoIiticd Centre,
Rough
Jus,tiCe,
1968, CPC
No.
4%4.
9
Rosalind
Brooke
et
al.,
A
Polioy
to
EatabDh
the
Legal Rights
of
Low Income
Families
(1969), Poverty Pamphlet
1).
(1945, Cmd.
6641).
and Assistance (1970,
H.M.S.O.
Cmnd.
4249),
para.
18.
10
Cobden
Trust,
Legal Aid
ab
a
Social
Service
(1WO).
482
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