Weekly round up

Legal aid bill

We reported earlier this week on a small concession, but there has been no further movement and the debate in the House of Lords has now moved away from legal aid issues. Last week’s debates can be found on the Parliament website (day 5 of the Committee stage).

LSC win in High Court

Following the Henthorn case, the LSC have won another case against legal aid practitioners, allowing them to recover historic payments on account where final bills were never submitted. The judgement in Legal Services Commission v Loomba [2012] EWHC 29 (QB) is available on Bailii and the case is also reported in the Gazette. If you find Bailii useful, you may want to consider donating to its appeal for funds. In light of Henthorn, Loomba is unsurprising, but the judgement is a detailed survey of the law in this area.

Family tender

We reported earlier this week that practitioners who were not awarded contracts in the recent family / housing with family tender round will now be able to bid for licensed work only contracts starting from April 2012. No information is yet available on the LSC website, but given the short timescales, affected practitioners should check the tenders page very regularly over the next couple of weeks.