Lawyers to march as legal aid cut

Tauranga's family law barristers angered by the Government's slashing of legal aid are planning to take their objections to the streets with a protest march.
Stopwork action could also be part of their bid to highlight their concerns.
Government budget cuts mean lawyers undertaking legal aid work from July 1 will have their hourly rate cut on average by $2 to $3. The lawyers say the rate reduction will deprive society's most disadvantaged of quality legal advice.
Current legal aid rates range from $105 to $182 an hour which the Legal Services Agency calculates taking into account the lawyer's level of experience and the nature of the proceedings.
The rate reduction affects lawyers engaged in family law, criminal and civil cases, and comes after the rates were only increased last year following 12 years stuck at the 1996 level.
Senior family law barristers Trish Jones and Liz Jamieson, both members of Beach Legal team in Mount Maunganui, said the reduction was not just about a pay cut, which in itself was unfair and disheartening after lawyers fought for 12 years to achieve a pay increase. But the pair, who each have clocked over 30 years in the legal profession, said the cutback would also impact on the most vulnerable - particularly those who could not afford to pay for
a lawyer but need one in urgent custody proceedings, parenting orders and domestic violence cases.
Ms Jones said people served with protection orders currently had to telephone four or five firms to find a legal-aid lawyer willing to drop everything to take on their case and many lawyers were pulling out of this work because of the current rate of remuneration.

 Late last week Tauranga's family law bar members met to discuss taking action. Chris Forbes, a partner with Tauranga legal firm Bush, Forbes and McLeod, said she and other members were planning an "Access to Justice" protest march.
Ms Forbes said the aim was to send a clear message to the Government that family lawyers and their clients would not simply accept the cuts.

Ms Jones said if all the family lawyers in Tauranga suddenly pulled out of doing legal aid work, people would turn up to court unrepresented.
Tauranga barrister MaryAnn McCarty said the reduction "strikes at the very heart" of every New Zealander's right to access to justice.
Ms McCarty said if more senior lawyers withdrew from the legal aid pool and juniors coming up the ranks became disenchanted about filling the gaps because of the reduced remuneration rate, the system would start to break down.

 "When the legal aid monies run out, which they generally do half way through preparing a case, no lawyer is going to just abandon their client but we have to carry on to see the case to its conclusion regardless."
Senior Tauranga trial lawyers say they are disappointed the pay decrease has been made even before a pending review by Dame Margaret Bazley has been completed, and without any consultation.
Lawyer Tony Balme said the Government risked driving more senior lawyers away from legal aid work.
 "The court system is pretty fragile in Tauranga given that there is only a handful of experienced trial lawyers doing most of our trial work."

Some MPs have accused defence lawyers of milking the legal aid system by taking payments for hopeless or unnecessary cases, but Mr Balme said the MPs were taking "cheap political shots" and the justice system could not function without people having an experienced defence lawyer to represent them.