Rejected Legal Aid Claims

Rejected claims have a negative impact upon your KPIs. It is therefore essential to try to ensure that you are reducing / eliminating any rejections.

Only a ‘hard reject’ will count against your KPIs. These are claims rejected because they have not been submitted in accordance with the LAA checklists.

If the claim is rejected for another reason that it is dealt with as a priority return and it will not count against KPI. An example of a reason for a ‘priority return’ is if the counsel’s fees in a paper claim don’t match what has been paid to counsel.

If a claim has been incorrectly rejected, then it will be dealt with as a priority return. Providers can raise concerns that a claim has been incorrectly rejected through the reject fix email : laacivilclaimfix@legalaid.gsi.gov.uk

The LAA state that common reasons for claims being rejected are

• Reconciliation of counsel’s fees
• Voucher or invoice not provided or contains insufficient detail
• Form not completed
• Incorrect rate/hearing unit claimed
• Form not signed
• Counsel cost allocation insufficient (CCMS)
• Interim bill not applicable (CCMS)
• Outcomes not processed (CCMS)
• Multiple document requests (CCMS)
• Incorrect fee scheme selected (CCMS)

Our Legal Aid Quick Guide provides handy tables for fixed fees, hourly rates and the LAA submission requirements. You can get your free copy here.