The case for legal aid

In February, Young Legal Aid Lawyers and the Haldane Society convened a Commission of Inquiry at the House of Commons into whether there was a case for legal aid. The report of the Commission – composed not of lawyers or users of legal aid, but of an independent panel – has now been published the Jures website. They considered submissions for and against legal aid, as well as personal testimony, and the result is a serious and timely rebuttal of much of the government’s case for legal aid reform. The full report, Unequal Before the Law, is available on the Jures website, and its director, Jon Robins, has written about it for The Guardian.