YLAL News

Welcome to our update of the latest legal aid and access to justice news from January 2017. If you would like to catch up on the most important legal aid news from 2016, read our Year in Review.

On 9 January 2017, YLAL responded to the second consultation by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) on its proposal to introduce a Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE), intended to serve as a common professional assessment for all solicitors on the point of qualification. You can read our full response to the consultation below, and our response to the initial consultation on the SQE in March 2016 here.

Ask your MP to protect the most the vulnerable in society by supporting legal aid and access to justice.

The Access to Justice Commission chaired by Labour peer Lord Bach released a damning interim report last week on “the crisis in the justice system of England and Wales”.

On Wednesday 9 November 2016, we held a careers event, 'Becoming a Legal Aid Lawyer', at London South Bank University. Young Legal Aid Lawyers co-chairs Oliver Carter and Rachel Francis presented an introduction to YLAL and a brief history of legal aid, from the Poor Prisoners Defence Act 1903, which introduced criminal legal aid for defendants in the higher criminal courts, to the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 ('LASPO'), which wholly or partially removed a number of areas of law from the scope of legal aid.