I have found John M Hayes to be a very efficient, friendly and knowledgeable service and have been very satisfied with their services.
Fieldings Porter Solicitors
The Law Society recently held their annual Legal Aid Conference which had the tagline ‘There is life after LASPO – responding to the changing world’. We were proud to be principle sponsors of the event and were on hand to provide a costs clinic during breaks.
With the impact of LASPO imminent the mood in the room appeared to be understandably negative. The day started with the welcome from Lucy Scott-Moncrieff, President of the Law Society followed by the opening plenary focused on the question of whether technology was the answer to the changing world before us. We heard from Matthew Coats, Chief Executive of the LSC regarding the challenges that would be facing the LSC in the coming year and how technology was a major part of their plans to improve their working practices. Further presentations were provided by Richard Cohen, Executive Chairman of Epoq who passionately advocated that firms should be embracing the possibilities of technology and provided an introduction into how firms were using their cloud based software to provide a variety of unbundled services to clients. Elizabeth O’Hara from Shelter closed the plenary section with a balanced analysis of the growing role of technology and also its limitations: is technology the answer? Yes and no appeared to be the conclusion.
A Q and A session concluded the morning’s opening session; this gave the delegates an opportunity to forward their views and was an opportunity that was not missed. It was clear that there continue to be grave concerns regarding the impact that the forthcoming changes will have upon clients.
There were a variety of breakout sessions during the day, these looked at the specifics of the forthcoming changes, the practical impact, possible ways to repackage services and attract private clients, what to expect from auditing and contract compliance post LASPO and how to make the most of legal aid work.
The closing plenary focused on what firms need to do in order to survive and looked at whether ABS was a threat or an opportunity.
An important theme during the day was that the fight against LASPO is not over. We will shortly be seeing the actual consequences of LASPO and it was advocated that it was essential that these are highlighted as part of the ongoing campaign. By the time it came to Lucy Scott Moncrief’s closing remarks she posed the question – do you feel more positive than you did this morning? Although slightly tentative it appeared that yes was just about victorious. The day highlighted very well that there is a significantly changing landscape ahead of us that will provide both challenges and opportunities and that each and every firm need to make sure that they know how they will
Tuesday 26th March 2013