Legal Aid Policy: A Time for Reflection

J Cooper
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J Cooper: School of Law, Middlesex Polytechnic, The Burroughs, London NW4 4BT, England

Environment and Planning C, 1984, vol. 2, issue 4, 431-443

Abstract: In this article, I reflect upon the new pressures placed upon legal services systems in different countries over the past few years through a combination of economic recession and political hostility. I seek to argue that, although the short-term effects of these pressures upon legal aid structures may well be very harmful, in the long term a number of benefits may accrue. I argue that there are three distinct ways in which legal services schemes can reap positive benefit from attack. First, cutbacks in legal aid provide a real-life framework in which to test the validity of the theoretical and political critique of the philosophy of legal aid put forward by legal sociologists over the past decade; second, the need for a delivery system to be justified in terms of cost has led to surprising results that indicate the cost-effectiveness of more radical delivery models; third, economic restraint within the radical fringe of legal aid activity has itself stimulated a creativity of approach, and a forging of original and effective alliances, that would have been less likely in a more financially stable framework.

Date: 1984
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:envirc:v:2:y:1984:i:4:p:431-443

DOI: 10.1068/c020431

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