Legal Aid
JL Solicitors does not currently offer Legal Aid services because we do not have a Legal Aid contract from the Legal Services Commission (LSC) to undertake publicly funded work.
A firm can only offer Legal Aid services when it has a ‘Legal Aid contract’ (formerly known as a ‘legal aid franchise’) with the LSC. Such contracts currently run for 3 years after which the LSC holds ‘bid rounds’ when firms who wish to offer Legal Aid services apply to the LSC for a Legal Aid contract in the subject areas it wishes to offer Legal Aid services. Until a bid round takes place a firm that wishes to enter the Legal Aid market to offer Legal Aid services is prevented from doing so. JL Solicitors intends to apply for a Legal Aid contract to offer Legal Aid immigration services at the next bid round, so watch this space – and our News section.
The next contracts are due to commence in October 2010. We will know shortly beforehand whether JL Solicitors has been successful in securing a Legal Aid contract to undertake Legal Aid immigration work.
In the meantime, we do still of course offer a full range of immigration services encompassing all aspects of work on Immigration, Nationality and Asylum Law. However, all work will be charged for on a private fee paying basis, so you will have to pay us for our services yourself.
For more information, please see our News section and more specifically the Legal Aid categories.