The Gazette 1984

GAZETTE

MARCH 1984

the USA, providing well-organised and effective free legal

assistance.

University law schools are another source of free legal

help. Most now have clinical programmes which seek to

give law students practical experience before they

graduate; under supervision by experienced practitioners

they are permitted to appear in many courts. At UCLA

Law School, the professor in charge of the clinical

programme was previously the director of the Western

Centre on Law and Poverty. The clinical programmes are

often integrated with local legal aid offices, and some

students go on to be employed with them after qualifying.

Public Defender

The legal aid programmes funded by the Legal Services

Corporation, and the other organisations which have

been mentioned, rarely undertake criminal cases. The

Legal Services Corporation by its governing statute is

prohibited from funding them. In many cities and States,

however, there are public defender schemes funded by the

appropriate government. There are also federal public

defender schemes for those facing criminal charges in

federal courts. In California, approximately 90% of all

criminal defences are handled by the State Public

Defender office, and the lawyers who work in it are

generally very highly regarded for competence, indepen-

dence and integrity. As in the case of cirminal legal aid in

Britain, it is the court which determines in each case

whether the accused should be defended at public

expense. If so, the public defender will normally be

assigned, but some private attorneys may be instructed at

public expense where, for example, there are conflicts

between co-defendants. There is evidence that the cost per

case of the public defender office is very considerably

lower than the cost of instructing private attorneys.

Contrasts

From this necessarily superficial survey, some striking

contrasts stand out. In the USA public funding of legal

services, though less proportionately than in Britain, is

used almost entirely for salaried lawyers employed by

community based organisations. In Britain, only a

handful of salaried lawyers (outside industry and the

Government's internal legal service) are to be found in the

law centres and a few advice agencies. The Benson

Commission did not encourage hopes for a larger salaried

sector in Britain. Of course, in the last resort the indepen-

dence of salaried lawyers is qualified by reliance on the

federal, State or city governments who provide the

money, and there is much current anxiety, for example,

over attempts by Reagan nominees on the Legal Services

Corporation to direct some of its resources towards the

private profession. Generally, however, the vastly greater

resources of US salaried services have permitted more

varied and sophisticated forms of provision.

In Britain, legal aid has suffered from the limitation

imposed on private practitioners by the need to make a

profit and by restraints on competition. On the other

hand, the opportunities for economic and professional

advancement in a mixed practice result in more legal aid

work in Britain being done by more experienced lawyers,

though not necessarily the most able, who in both

countries are often attracted to salaried service, at least in

the early stages of their careers.

A major study published in the US in June 1980 by the

Legal Service Corporation (the'Delivery Systems Study')

concluded that a salaried lawyer system was far more

effective than a system based on private practice in

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