At the moment the campaign comes across as being spearheaded by legal aid lawyers. Given that I’m a lawyer myself, I imagine that everyone who isn’t must notice that even more.

As is pointed out above far more eloquently that I ever could do myself, the need for legal aid for access to justice is very real, as is the need for it to be of an appropriate quality.

Right now though, this is drowned out by the “greedy lawyer” counterargument. As part of this, inevitably, the two or three millionaire legal aid lawyers at the very top of their fields (who’d earn multiples of what they do if they worked in another area I’m sure) are pointed at as being typical of the thousands of other.

Answering this charge by saying that most legal aid lawyers earn less than primary school teachers won’t exactly endear you to the primary school teachers you’ve impliedly devalued, nor anyone who earns even less than they do. I’ve heard this argument reiterated in many forms by legal aid lawyers, it’s not just here. Given that such people are the main beneficiaries of legal aid (as they would not be able to afford the right representation at all without it, even with major sacrifices), this is a serious misstep.

This might be the reason why these cuts are being ignored in much of the mainstream press. Perhaps if we heard more from those who’ve benefitted from the current system (say, the falsely accused or those who would otherwise have lost access to their children) and less from the lawyers who receive legal aid funding, this might change. If lawyers want to help the campaign, they should be mentioning it to their legal aid clients and (at the risk of being harsh) talking a little less themselves.

Hopefully that will help underscore the real issue: legal aid isn’t for lawyers, it’s for the clients who need them and (unless you’re a millionaire) you’ve got a higher chance than you might think of becoming one of those clients some day.