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28 January 2016 / Sir Geoffrey Bindman KC
Issue: 7684 / Categories: Opinion , Legal aid focus , Profession
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For the good of the profession

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A levy on high-earning lawyers: 20 years on & Geoffrey Bindman QC is still waiting

Twenty years ago I failed to persuade my colleagues on the Law Society’s pro bono working party to recommend a levy on high-earning lawyers to supplement public funding. The working party did however accept a compromise: it urged the Society to establish a voluntary fund. When the proposal was put to the big City firms, they turned it down. The Law Society dropped it. The Labour Party later supported a compulsory levy but also dropped it on entering government in 1997.

Jon Robins’s article on the funding crisis reminded me of this history (see “Breaking point”, 165 NLJ 7679, p 7). I do not know if Michael Gove was aware of it when he was appointed as lord chancellor and secretary of state for justice but I am pleased that he has revived the idea of a levy. Soon after he took office he floated it in a lecture which, when reported, again produced

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