Bill Waddington continues to fight against legal aid cuts

Our Director, Senior Solicitor/Head of Criminal Defence and the Chairman of the Criminal Law Solicitors Association, Bill Waddington, has continued to express his concerns over the cuts to Legal Aid in a letter to The Times newspaper in order to save the criminal justice system.

Bill’s statement appeared in the ‘Letters to the Editor’ section of The Times: “Sir, The increase in the number of unrepresented litigants, due to cuts to civil legal aid, is merely the tip of the iceberg (“Rise of the DIY litigant forces judges to rewrite court rules”, Sept 8). What lies beneath is a tangle of ideological ineptitude that has seen confusion and delay become the watchwords of our once world-renowned justice system.

The cuts to the criminal legal budget will only add fuel to this fire, placing further burden on judges and ensuring that the costs of running our courts continue to balloon. There are ways to reform the legal aid system to both save money and preserve equality of access to justice, but Chris Grayling’s current reforms will do neither. The Ministry of Justice must pause, listen, and urgently reconsider its approach.”

Bill, along with hundreds of other criminal solicitors, is fighting against the cuts to legal aid which is damaging our justice system. The cuts have provoked successive mass walkouts by criminal barristers and solicitors all over the country.