Causes of Action: First Findings of the LSRC Periodic Survey

Journal of Law and Society

Volumn 30, Issue 1 SPEC. ISS., 2003, Pages 11-30

  Pleasence, Pascoe ^a   Genn, Hazel ^b   Balmer, Nigel J ^a   Buck, Alexy ^a   O'Grady, Aoife ^a  

^a Legal Services Research Centre   (United Kingdom)

^b UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0142230890     PISSN: 0263323X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/1467-6478.00243     Document Type: Review

References (75)

1. Changes to the main civil legal aid means test, implemented in December 2001, were designed to be eligibility- and cost-neutral. The aim of the changes was to simplify the means test and better target those individuals least able to afford legal services. See, further, A. Buck and G. Stark, Means Assessment: Options for Change (2001).
2. H. Glennerster, J. Hills, T. Travers, and R. Hendry, Paying for Health, Education and Housing (2000). Glennerster et al. describe the first phase of government social spending as being associated with the allocation of limited resources, the second by the provision of extensive services through the public sector, and the third by a retreat from universality and an emphasis on targeting services to those most in need.
3. Civil proceedings in which a person's life or liberty is at stake, along with certain proceedings under the Children's Act 1989, have been designated as 'top priorities'. These are then followed by a series of case types that have been designated as 'high priorities'. These include domestic violence, housing, social welfare, and abuse of power by a public body cases. For discussion of the impact of the Funding Code, see, for example, P. Pleasence, A. Buck, and J. Christie, Testing the Code: Final Report (1999); T. Goriely, Breaking the Code (2001).
4. Civil proceedings in which a person's life or liberty is at stake, along with certain proceedings under the Children's Act 1989, have been designated as 'top priorities'. These are then followed by a series of case types that have been designated as 'high priorities'. These include domestic violence, housing, social welfare, and abuse of power by a public body cases. For discussion of the impact of the Funding Code, see, for example, P. Pleasence, A. Buck, and J. Christie, Testing the Code: Final Report (1999); T. Goriely, Breaking the Code (2001).
5. The provision of personal injury services remains an important component of the broad Community Legal Service, but access to them is now intended to be secured through conditional fee arrangements. For an account of the introduction of conditional fees, see S. Yarrow, The Price of Success: Lawyers, Clients and Conditional Fees (1997); S. Yarrow, Just Rewards? The Outcome of Conditional Fee Cases, (2000); S. Yarrow and P. Abrams, Nothing to Lose? Clients' Experiences of Conditional Fees (2000). See, also, R. Moorhead 'Conditional Fee Agreements, Legal Aid and Access to Justice' (2000) 33 University of British Columbia Law Rev. 471.
6. The provision of personal injury services remains an important component of the broad Community Legal Service, but access to them is now intended to be secured through conditional fee arrangements. For an account of the introduction of conditional fees, see S. Yarrow, The Price of Success: Lawyers, Clients and Conditional Fees (1997); S. Yarrow, Just Rewards? The Outcome of Conditional Fee Cases, (2000); S. Yarrow and P. Abrams, Nothing to Lose? Clients' Experiences of Conditional Fees (2000). See, also, R. Moorhead 'Conditional Fee Agreements, Legal Aid and Access to Justice' (2000) 33 University of British Columbia Law Rev. 471.
7. The provision of personal injury services remains an important component of the broad Community Legal Service, but access to them is now intended to be secured through conditional fee arrangements. For an account of the introduction of conditional fees, see S. Yarrow, The Price of Success: Lawyers, Clients and Conditional Fees (1997); S. Yarrow, Just Rewards? The Outcome of Conditional Fee Cases, (2000); S. Yarrow and P. Abrams, Nothing to Lose? Clients' Experiences of Conditional Fees (2000). See, also, R. Moorhead 'Conditional Fee Agreements, Legal Aid and Access to Justice' (2000) 33 University of British Columbia Law Rev. 471.
8. The provision of personal injury services remains an important component of the broad Community Legal Service, but access to them is now intended to be secured through conditional fee arrangements. For an account of the introduction of conditional fees, see S. Yarrow, The Price of Success: Lawyers, Clients and Conditional Fees (1997); S. Yarrow, Just Rewards? The Outcome of Conditional Fee Cases, (2000); S. Yarrow and P. Abrams, Nothing to Lose? Clients' Experiences of Conditional Fees (2000). See, also, R. Moorhead 'Conditional Fee Agreements, Legal Aid and Access to Justice' (2000) 33 University of British Columbia Law Rev. 471.
9. Payments to not-for-profit agencies now comprise around 15 per cent of total legal help expenditure.
10. R. Moorhead, A. Sherr, L. Webley, S. Rogers, L. Sherr, A. Paterson, and S. Domberger, Quality and Cost: Final Report on the Contracting of Civil, Non-Family Advice and Assistance Pilot (2000).
11. See, further, R. Moorhead, Pioneers in Practice (2000), P. Pleasence, A. Buck, G. Goriely, J. Taylor, H. Perkins, and H. Quirk, Local Legal Need (2001).
12. See, further, R. Moorhead, Pioneers in Practice (2000), P. Pleasence, A. Buck, G. Goriely, J. Taylor, H. Perkins, and H. Quirk, Local Legal Need (2001).
13. In letting contracts, priority is given to areas of unmet need.
14. Access to Justice Act 1999 s. 4(6).
15. Lord Chancellor's Department PSA target 6 is to 'increase the number of people who receive suitable assistance in priority areas of law, involving fundamental rights or social exclusion, by five per cent by 2004'.
16. Lord Chancellor's Department PSA target 3 is to 'reduce the proportion of disputes which are resolved by resort to the courts'.
17. Administrative data being information routinely collected by public or other bodies as a function of their business and stored in a consistent and accessible manner.
18. These are geographically referenced legal need models based on nationally available proxy data. See, further, Pleasence et al., op. cit., n. 7.
19. Ibid. id.
20. H. Genn, Paths to Justice (1999).
21. W. Felstiner, R. Abel, and A. Sarat 'The Emergence and Transformation of Disputes: Naming, Blaming, Claiming ...' (1981) 15 Law and Society Rev. 631.
22. Genn, op. cit., n. 15; H. Genn and A. Paterson, Paths to Justice Scotland (2001).
23. Genn, op. cit., n. 15; H. Genn and A. Paterson, Paths to Justice Scotland (2001).
24. C. Clark and E. Corstvet, 'The Lawyer and the Public: An A.A.L.S. Survey' (1938) 47 Yale Law J. 1972.
25. The second LSRC survey will be conducted from April 2004.
26. See nn. 10 and 11 above.
27. A telephone survey questionnaire derived from the LSRC survey questionnaire has been successfully piloted in LSRC survey areas, and will be used by the Partnership and Planning division of the Legal Services Commission from this autumn as the means to monitor Community Legal Service Partnership performance indicators.
28. For a historical review of empirical studies of legal need, see Pleasence et al., op. cit., n. 7.
29. One broad change saw the survey reference period shortened from five-and-a-half to three-and-a-half years, to fit more effectively government target periods.
30. This compares to sample size of 4,125 and 2,684 adults in the Paths to Justice and Paths to Justice Scotland surveys respectively.
31. For a full technical description of the sampling methodology see K. Swales, Measuring Legal Needs: Technical Report (2001).
32. The full set of categories used were discrimination, consumer, employment, neighbours, housing (owning), housing (renting), homelessness, money/debt, welfare benefits, divorce, relationship, domestic violence, children, personal injury, medical negligence, mental health, immigration, unfair police treatment.
33. All main survey figures are provisionally weighted, and in the case of figures derived from the main section of the questionnaire have been weighted to match the screen section. All case study area and institutional survey figures are unweighted. 2001 census weighted- figures will be set out in a final project report.
34. Genn, op. cit., n. 15, p. 36.
35. id., p. 271.
36. id., p. 30. We have found similarly.
37. Our findings indicate that bias is greatest in relation to consumer problems and least in relation to divorce.
38. This five-and-a-half-year estimate is derived from curves fitted to seven sampled periods from the observed data (1/2001 6/2001; 6/2000 6/2001; 1/2000 6/2001; 6/1999 6/2001; 1/1999 6/2001; 6/1998 6/2001; 1/1998 6/2001). Five and a half years is entered into the fitted function (generally logarithmic) to produce an estimate.
39. National Consumer Council, Seeking Civil Justice (1995); Scottish Consumer Council, Civil Disputes in Scotland (1997).
40. National Consumer Council, Seeking Civil Justice (1995); Scottish Consumer Council, Civil Disputes in Scotland (1997).
41. Genn and Paterson, op. cit., n. 17, p. 275.
42. id., p. 251.
43. See, further, Office for National Statistics, Regional Tends (2001); Office for National Statistics, Social Trends (2002). It is a particular drawback of the Paths to Justice and Paths to Justice Scotland surveys that no detailed demographic data was collected across the entire samples.
44. See, further, Office for National Statistics, Regional Tends (2001); Office for National Statistics, Social Trends (2002). It is a particular drawback of the Paths to Justice and Paths to Justice Scotland surveys that no detailed demographic data was collected across the entire samples.
45. Of the 227 single parents in the main sample, 154 (67.8 per cent) had experienced one or more problems within the reference period
46. For this analysis binary logistic regression was used. Those explanatory variables described as significant were so at the 95 per cent confidence level. The explanatory variables used (all categorical except the last two) were employment status, benefit status (binary), qualifications (binary), gender, health (binary), housing type, tenure type, ethnicity (binary), age, and income. These variables were treated in two different ways; first repeated contrasts have been used, then deviance contrasts (to avoid comparing missing/unknown categories with the highest of the ordered categories). Compare Genn, op. cit, n. 15 and Genn and Paterson, op. cit., n. 17.
47. For this analysis binary logistic regression was used. Those explanatory variables described as significant were so at the 95 per cent confidence level. The explanatory variables used (all categorical except the last two) were employment status, benefit status (binary), qualifications (binary), gender, health (binary), housing type, tenure type, ethnicity (binary), age, and income. These variables were treated in two different ways; first repeated contrasts have been used, then deviance contrasts (to avoid comparing missing/unknown categories with the highest of the ordered categories). Compare Genn, op. cit, n. 15 and Genn and Paterson, op. cit., n. 17.
48. M. Noble, M. Lloyd, M. Sigala, G. Wright, M. Cox, C. Dibben, H. Perkins, and N. Strudwick, Predictive Legal Needs Models Development Project: Report to the Legal Services Research Centre (2002).
49. 165 of 197 (83.2 per cent).
50. The total number of 'non-trivial' problems reported by respondents to the main survey was 3,990, equating to around two problems per person experiencing one or more. The corresponding figures from Paths to Justice were around 4,200 problems, equating to almost three per person. A similar problem rate per person was reported in Paths to Justice Scotland, op. cit., n. 17, p. 42 and p. 275.
51. For the purposes of Figure 1 the LSRC survey data has been reclassified to exactly match the categories used in Paths to Justice. So, for example, neighbours problems have been incorporated into the two housing categories.
52. ONS, op. cit. (2002), n. 36.
53. This figure is derived from the screen section, and compares to 16 per cent in Paths to Justice (Genn, op. cit., n. 15, p. 38).
54. This latter figure is derived from screen questionnaire responses detailed in ch. 2 of Paths to Justice. The figure set out in the text in relation to the main questionnaire is 5 per cent (3 per cent in Paths to Justice Scotland); Genn, id., p. 68; Genn and Paterson, op. cit., n. 17, p. 87.
55. This latter figure is derived from screen questionnaire responses detailed in ch. 2 of Paths to Justice. The figure set out in the text in relation to the main questionnaire is 5 per cent (3 per cent in Paths to Justice Scotland); Genn, id., p. 68; Genn and Paterson, op. cit., n. 17, p. 87.
56. The method used was as described in n. 38.
57. Although the percentages vary between the three surveys, the proportions as between the different categories are similar.
58. M. Kilian 'Alternatives to Public Provision: The Role of Legal Expenses Insurance in Broadening Access to Justice', this volume, p. 31.
59. The figures set out here are based on numbers of problems experienced in a year period (rather than the number of new problems arising in a year period). The adult population estimate (49,151,600) was taken from ONS, op. cit. (2001), n. 36, p. 40.
60. 74 per cent of those who stated an objective.
61. Details of strategies and objectives in relation to medical negligence will be set out in a forthcoming paper.
62. 28 per cent of those who stated an objective.
63. The corresponding figure was 6 per cent for Paths to Justice.
64. Equally split.
65. See, also, Moorhead et al., op. cit., n. 6, p. 56.
66. Respondents indicated that mediation or conciliation had been planned, though not employed, in respect of a further half per cent of problems.
67. It is no surprise, therefore, that solicitors were most likely to refer clients to mediation.
68. Felstiner et al., op. cit., n. 16. As reported in Pleasence et al., op. cit., n. 7, p. 18, this is a five-stage aetiology: The first step is that an injurious experience must be recognised as such: it must be 'named'. Secondly, it must become a source of grievance; another party must be 'blamed'. Thirdly, the injured person must decide to confront the possible wrongdoer with the problem, to 'claim'. Many people at this stage may well decide to 'lump it' or to practice avoidance (leaving the job, changing to another lender). If the other side denies the claim, then it turns into a dispute, at which point the disputants may (or may not) decide to call in a third party, such as a lawyer. Finally, they may or may not decide to proceed with the case through the courts.
69. Felstiner et al., op. cit., n. 16. As reported in Pleasence et al., op. cit., n. 7, p. 18, this is a five-stage aetiology: The first step is that an injurious experience must be recognised as such: it must be 'named'. Secondly, it must become a source of grievance; another party must be 'blamed'. Thirdly, the injured person must decide to confront the possible wrongdoer with the problem, to 'claim'. Many people at this stage may well decide to 'lump it' or to practice avoidance (leaving the job, changing to another lender). If the other side denies the claim, then it turns into a dispute, at which point the disputants may (or may not) decide to call in a third party, such as a lawyer. Finally, they may or may not decide to proceed with the case through the courts.
70. See, for example, F. Regan, 'Dilemmas of Dispute Resolution' (1997) 8 Aus. Dispute Resolution J. 1.
71. See, for example, R. Kidder 'The end of the Road? Problems in the Analysis of Disputes' (1981) 15 Law and Society Rev. 111.
72. S. Lloyd-Bostock 'Propensity to Sue in England and the United States of America: a comment on Kritzer' (1991) 18 J. of Law and Society 428.
73. J. Pearce, G. Davis, and J. Barron 'Love in a Cold Climate Section 8 Applications under the Children Act 1989' in Family Law, January 1999, 22.
74. In a forthcoming paper we will explore this further.
75. Genn, op. cit., n. 17, p. 255.