Bloody Mad Woman (BMW)
23rd January 2007, 13:17
Press Release by New Zealand National Party 1:06pm, 23rd January 2007
"It's just appalling that Labour is budgeting on more people to be failed by our legal aid system before it does something to fix it," says National Party Associate Justice spokeswoman Kate Wilkinson.
"Labour doesn't seem to care that more people will miss out on representation in court as the number of legal aid lawyers prepared to take on the work evaporates.
"The exodus of lawyers from the legal aid list is not a new issue, but the Minister continues to turn a blind eye. His move to expand eligibility for legal aid will mean nothing if there aren't any lawyers prepared to take cases."
Mrs Wilkinson is commenting in light of the Minister's statement that 'once changes to eligibility had been bedded in a review of the rates would be undertaken'.
"Whilst he is in slumber mode, the number of lawyers undertaking legal aid is diminishing - family legal aid lawyers have dwindled from 2012 to 1017 in the past 12 months and the number of criminal legal aid lawyers has dropped from 1084 to 846.
"We've lost half the family lawyers who would do legal aid work and around 20% of those who carry the criminal workload. Meanwhile the Minister's bureaucracy continues to grow at an alarming rate."
Answers to Parliamentary questions show there are 112 people employed principally for processing legal aid applications.
"Based on a 46-week year and a 40 hour week that means it takes three hours per application to process and the cost per grant has risen from $180.66 last year to $203.76.
"Labour's ill-conceived increase in legal aid eligibility will result in an additional 77.7 full time equivalent staff at a cost of $3.84m.
"So what we're looking at is a 40% increase in staff, more office space and more people eligible for legal aid - but fewer lawyers to do the work. This is a recipe for disaster.
"How many people will be denied proper representation because of the incompetent way that Labour's gone about effecting change?"
ENDS
It is no wonder lawyers won't take on legal aid work - so many hours are involved which they never get paid for because the Legal Aid Agency has set fees basically and will, in most cases, turn down a request for more hours to be delegated to a case. The paperwork involved is phenomenal. Normally I never sympathise with lawyers but in this case - they really are hard done by.
"It's just appalling that Labour is budgeting on more people to be failed by our legal aid system before it does something to fix it," says National Party Associate Justice spokeswoman Kate Wilkinson.
"Labour doesn't seem to care that more people will miss out on representation in court as the number of legal aid lawyers prepared to take on the work evaporates.
"The exodus of lawyers from the legal aid list is not a new issue, but the Minister continues to turn a blind eye. His move to expand eligibility for legal aid will mean nothing if there aren't any lawyers prepared to take cases."
Mrs Wilkinson is commenting in light of the Minister's statement that 'once changes to eligibility had been bedded in a review of the rates would be undertaken'.
"Whilst he is in slumber mode, the number of lawyers undertaking legal aid is diminishing - family legal aid lawyers have dwindled from 2012 to 1017 in the past 12 months and the number of criminal legal aid lawyers has dropped from 1084 to 846.
"We've lost half the family lawyers who would do legal aid work and around 20% of those who carry the criminal workload. Meanwhile the Minister's bureaucracy continues to grow at an alarming rate."
Answers to Parliamentary questions show there are 112 people employed principally for processing legal aid applications.
"Based on a 46-week year and a 40 hour week that means it takes three hours per application to process and the cost per grant has risen from $180.66 last year to $203.76.
"Labour's ill-conceived increase in legal aid eligibility will result in an additional 77.7 full time equivalent staff at a cost of $3.84m.
"So what we're looking at is a 40% increase in staff, more office space and more people eligible for legal aid - but fewer lawyers to do the work. This is a recipe for disaster.
"How many people will be denied proper representation because of the incompetent way that Labour's gone about effecting change?"
ENDS
It is no wonder lawyers won't take on legal aid work - so many hours are involved which they never get paid for because the Legal Aid Agency has set fees basically and will, in most cases, turn down a request for more hours to be delegated to a case. The paperwork involved is phenomenal. Normally I never sympathise with lawyers but in this case - they really are hard done by.