‘In every part of Scotland, parents and grandparents say they’ve contacted 50-60 solicitors without success’ – Evidence Given to Scottish Parliament Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Legal Aid Committee by our CEO

On Tuesday the 20th of May our Chief Executive, Kevin Kane, provided evidence to the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee of the Scottish Parliament, as part of their inquiry on their civil legal aid. This follows our written evidence to the committee.

Kevin and other attendees were asked what specific clients they represent and what specific barriers they see in accessing civil legal aid assistance. Kevin responded:

“We support mothers, fathers and grandparents after separation or divorce. We are seeing increasing demand on our services. Almost all those people are affected by access to lawyers and legal aid. In particular, we are seeing more parents who feel that they have a case to argue but cannot find a solicitor to argue it. We have received calls from parents and grandparents in every part of Scotland, saying that they have phoned or emailed 50 to 60 solicitors without success.

We see an overarching barrier in our casework: the adversarial system, which creates an inequality of arms that can affect the outcome of proceedings. What I mean by that is that the better-resourced client can wear down the other until they have run out of money. Their choice is then to become a party litigant or to walk away.

Our view is that most people do not actually want legal aid; they want to solve their problems and get out of court. However, as things stand, that often requires going to court, at which point legal aid kicks in—for some. It is part of the solution, but it is also part of the problem, because it is bound to that escalatory, adversarial conveyor belt that people are then on.

Every one of our meetings round the country has pro bono solicitors. That is a positive, but it represents a fallout in the wider system. We are seeing an increasing number of referrals from other agencies, including agencies represented round this table: Aberlour and Children First and at the local level in particular – Scottish Women’s Aid.

Much was said last week on the subject of finding a solicitor, and we would echo the comments on getting a solicitor to take legal aid cases. An emerging and growing issue for us concerns clients who leave one solicitor and are unable to find a new solicitor to take on an existing case.

Much has been said about the rural dimension, which we might pick up later. We have seen a more general attrition over five years, which is due to solicitors having died, retired or moved from one firm that did legal aid to another firm that does not”.

Shared Parenting Scotland provided supplementary evidence after the session to the Committee, building on the general reluctance to base too much on extreme cases, urging the Committee to note that funding by legal aid can itself create an inequality of arms, escalating, rather than de-escalating tensions between parents.