Although based on the national Constitutional right to counsel, the widespread use of public defenders in the United States is only 36 years old, flowing from a Supreme Court decision in 1963. The right to counsel is a federal right, but it is implemented primarily by states and local governments, and as a result varies widely in quality and effectiveness. Where resources and independence are secure, defenders can do an effective job and protect their clients' rights. Where they are not, terrible injustices can occur. Because of demands on local government budgets, defenders often face severe financial pressures which can affect their independence and their ability to represent their clients. Bar Association standards have been helpful in preserving some independence and in supporting requests for adequate funding.

Litigation has been of modest assistance toward the same ends.

"Spending on criminal legal aid per head of population is particularly high in Scotland. The bulk of expenditure is relative minor cases dealt with under summary procedure (that is, without a jury). In an attempt to control costs, the Government established a pilot Public Defence Solicitors Office (PDSO) in Edinburgh. Since October 1998, those born in January and February who face summary prosecution in the Edinburgh courts are no longer able to receive criminal legal aid from private solicitors. Instead, they must use the PDSO.

This paper describes some of the difficulties of evaluating the quality of service provided by the PDSO compared to private practice. The chief emphasis will be on a study of outcomes, comparing convictions and sentences. However, summary justice does not necessarily result in clear-cut outcomes. Many cases end up in some form of plea bargain, whereby the accused pleads guilty to some charges and not others, or to charges with some words or phrases deleted. Similarly, it is difficult to rank sentences that do not result in imprisonment."

Albert Klijn

Research Department (WODC) Ministry of Justice

In January 1994 a new Dutch Legal Aid Act (1994 LAA) came into effect intending to change both the structure and the practice of State subsidized legal services. From a behavioral point of view the 1994 LAA ought to be considered as a new pattern of incentives focused on several relevant actors in order to influence as well remodel their behavior. Relevant actors being both the people who are looking for the legal services (demand side) and the professionals, private lawyers as well as salaried lawyers in our Legal Advice Centers (supply side).

Based on our research of both the recipients and the providers of legal services I will explore in my paper to which extent actual practices indicate the returns of the investments made by the Government as well as the legal professions during past two decades.

Until 1967, legal aid services were provided by lawyers from the private bar on a voluntary basis. In 1967, the Law Society of Saskatchewan and the Attorney General established a legal aid plan for criminal offences, under which a nominal fee was paid to lawyers who handled criminal cases.

The Carter Report of 1974 recommended a staff system to deliver legal aid in a system which emphasized community involvement. The recommendation, the Community Legal Services Act 1974, created the Saskatchewan Community Legal Services Commission.

In 1983, the Legal Aid Act replaced community boards with a highly centralized administrative system. The range of services was restricted to family and criminal matters, and service was provided by staff lawyers. There was no choice of counsel except for homicide.

The current issues facing legal aid in Saskatchewan are external factors such as economic issues, the impact of new legislation and caselaw, changes in justice enforcement and policy, and changes to funding arrangement between the provincial and federal governments.

Internal pressures faced by the Saskatchewan Legal Aid Commission include technology, tariff paid to private bar lawyers, collective bargaining, providing services to Aboriginal clients, and providing legal aid services within a capped budget.

The cost-effectiveness of staff-based plans is a combination of private bar tariff, staff salaries and productivity. The Saskatchewan Legal Aid Commission has a responsibility to manage those issues.

Legal Aid is a part of a system which can have a significant impact on the ability of the justice system to work effectively.

This paper will outline the recent statute and common law changes liberalising the approach to conditional fee arrangements but largely maintaining a prohibition on contingency fee arrangements. It will explore how they are seen by the current Government as supplementing and, to an extent at least, replacing legal aid for civil disputes with a monetary outcome. Finally, it will explore the tensions for policy makers and practitioners inherent in shifting a significant section of judicare funded legal work into a sphere funded by legal expenses insurers.

Anne Opie and Dave Smith

The objective of this paper is to discuss different modes of assessment of unmet legal needs of socio-economically disadvantaged communities employed over the last three years by the Legal Services Board. The paper refers to some of the changing social, economic, cultural, demographic and statutory factors as they bear on service provision. These include: negative social statistics relating to Maori, and Maori legal needs as vis à vis the Waitangi Tribunal; the legal needs of Pacific Islanders and refugees, the position of women in accessing justice, and the role of District Legal Services Committees. It then moves into a discussion of two different modes of assessing need: a large, national, quantitative study on the one hand, and on the other, the establishment and development of pilot projects. Although one mode of conceptualising the differences in approach could be along the quantitative/qualitative divide, the focus is instead on the different types of knowledge generated by these methods and on the positioning of communities in relation to that knowledge. We suggest that the survey remains divorced from the communities about which it "objectively" generalises; in contrast, the pilots (and the further modes of assessment they have generated) access typically marginalised knowledge, are grounded within their communities and have led to valuable processes of knowledge expansion and exchange, to the production of a more nuanced understanding of disadvantaged communities and to the refinement of modes of service delivery. The paper concludes with some reflections on the policy implications of these developments in a context of dwindling resources.

The Legal Aid Board has set up a network of 13 Regional Legal Services Committees covering the whole of England and Wales. Their role is to advise the Board on how local needs and priorities for legal services can be met in each geographical area.

Each RLSC has reported on:

(a) the need for legal services,

(b) the supply of legal services,

(c) prioritising geographical areas, categories of work and types of individual most in need of legal services,

and proposed a regional strategy to meet the need for legal services.

The RLSC reports will provide the basis for contracting to be introduced on 1 January 2000.

The Board has developed predicted need models for some categories of law. These models focus on identifying key factors likely to indicate the need for legal help in a particular category of work. They do not "count" the number of individuals in need of legal assistance but they do provide relative indicators of where need is likely to be concentrated.

These models informed a widespread consultation exercise. Many meetings have been held where the original proposals of the RLSCs have been changed and refined.

The process has indicated a number of areas of work for further development on identifying need and methods of delivery of services appropriate to that need.

The RLSCs will form an effective base from which a Community Legal Service can be introduced. The role of the RLSCs will develop and change to ensure that all funding of legal services is effectively co-ordinated and targeted to where the need is greatest.

This paper draws on evidence from a number of societies including Australia, Sweden and the USA to examine the rise of pro bono legal aid schemes organised and run by the private legal profession. The paper asks if these schemes represent a return to the mean charitable origins of legal aid, or whether they a necessary and desirable part of the legal aid infrastructure for the new millennium. In order to answer this question I describe pro bono schemes in different societies; examine what they do in practice; identify and assess their strengths; and identify the dangers they pose to consumers, governments and the private legal profession.

Hilary Sommerlad

The recent reforms of the legal aid sector are part of a wider movement in the public sphere towards a more accountable, transparent form of governance in which the citizen/consumer is no longer construed as a passive, childlike figure. This development is reflected in the deconstruction of the traditional, paternalistic and unaccountable form of professionalism and the stress on contractualism (Paterson, 1996). However, the emphases on the role of the consumer and the notion of increased accountability are difficult to realise. These difficulties arise from a variety of factors which include the potential conflict between the objective of achieving VFM for the taxpayer and quality for the client. Particularly problematic is the evaluation of the relational, interpersonal aspects of professional service. As a result of these difficulties, there is a danger that the notion of client responsiveness may be confined to the realm of rhetoric and professional paternalism replaced by bureaucratic paternalism.