The group of family legal aid firms represented by Nicholas Bowen QC in their JR against the LSC (see yesterday’s post) have been granted special leave to intervene as  interested parties in the Law Society’s own JR which is listed for hearing on 21-22 Sept. The Law Society are in the restricted position of being unable to take a stance which is to contrary to the interests of any one group of its membership – it is the representative body for both firms who were awarded contracts (and who want to keep them and therefore may wish to avoid the tender process being unpicked) and those who were not (and who may seek a re-run of the tender). The intervenors are a group of firms who are largely, but not exclusively made up of unsuccessful bidders.

solidarity by Dave Amis on flickr

They say:

At the time we submitted our letter before action we had about 12 firms on board. We now have the support of just over 30 firms and are also in discussions with other groups of firms about combining forces.  Our current members come from all over the country including London, Yorkshire, Hampshire, and various locations along the south coast. A number of the firms in our group have been awarded contracts.  We need as many firms as we can possibly get on board.

The group are calling urgently for any firms who want to join in this action to do so by emailing oliver.hudson@stamps-solicitors.co.uk confirming that they would like to join the list and whether or not they are able to make a contribution to the pot from which legal expenses will be met (suggested contribution £1,000). The court will be reluctant to deal with a trickle of claims – and the matter is set down for less than 2 weeks hence. I understand that the time the court has allocated to this case is the only time available before mid October – so it’s now or never.

Please use the buttons at the bottom of this post to email a link to this post to any of your colleagues who may wish to join this action or to tweet the link.