Contents
- Advice and assistance reforms and Legal Aid Online
- New login for Legal Aid Online
- New Legal Aid Online Client Mandate Form
- When to use the new Client Mandate Form
- Applying for an increase in civil advice and assistance/ABWOR
- More about Legal Aid Online and advice and assistance reforms
1. Advice and assistance reforms and Legal Aid Online
Reforms to advice and assistance are effective from Tuesday 1 May 2007. The Board has been issuing updates to solicitors about the changes which will see:
- civil advice and assistance being reformed, with two new types of advice being introduced: standard and diagnostic. You now use a Category Codes Card to see if the subject matter is a standard or diagnostic matter. The Board’s guidance sets out in more detail how these changes will operate.
- new application and increase forms coming into use for both civil and criminal matters.
- for civil increases in authorised expenditure, most cases will be able to use “templates” to request an increase, which are simpler and quicker to use.
Legal Aid Online is being updated to reflect the changes being made to advice and assistance. The first phase of changes will be in place for 1 May 2007, covering the new application forms and change to introduce standard and diagnostic in civil cases. Further improvements will be made later in May for civil increases and to make Legal Aid Online even easier to use – we’ll be updating you on these changes shortly. Until the changes are made for civil increases, there are some steps you should follow - see section 5.
We are also now introducing a new Client Mandate Form. This new form (or the printed forms) must be used for all advice and assistance applications made using Legal Aid Online from 1 May 2007.
2. New Legal Aid Online login
As from 30 April, we have changed the webpage you should use to login to Legal Aid Online. Although links from our website have changed, if you have Legal Aid Online as one of your “Favourites” in your web browser, you should update it. The new login page is at: https://laol.slab.org.uk/
3. New Legal Aid Online Client Mandate Form – must be used from 1 May 2007
New application forms for civil and criminal advice and assistance/ ABWOR must be used from 1 May 2007. Because of the changes to the new forms, such as the client declaration, we are introducing a new Client Mandate Form for Legal Aid Online users. This must be used from 1 May 2007.
The new form is now available in Microsoft Word format. You can use the Word version of the form to pre-print it with your name. You can also download the mandate form in print only pdf format.
You should now destroy copies of the old Mandate form. You should also ensure that if you are using a printed form and not the Client Mandate Form, you must use the new forms from 1 May 2007.
4. When to use the new Client Mandate Form
We recommend that you use the Client Mandate Form where you are making an advice and assistance application using Legal Aid Online and are seeing a
- repeat client or
- new client out of the office where their circumstances are straightforward – such as they receive a passport benefit.
In other situations you should use the printed advice and assistance application form to ensure you collect all the required information.
Remember that you are responsible for completing the application form and that you should ensure you get all the information required from your client. Therefore even if you are using the new Client Mandate Form, you may wish to refer to the printed advice and assistance form to ensure you collect all necessary information.
5. Applying for an increase in civil advice and assistance/ABWOR
A new printed form for criminal increases is not yet available. We have also not yet made wide ranging changes to Legal Aid Online for increases in authorised expenditure. Therefore most of the increase application service has not yet changed, but you can use our current service to apply using the new templates in civil advice and assistance.
We are introducing additional templates and revised limits of authorised expenditure in civil advice and assistance. We now expect most increases to be made using templates as they are easier and quicker for solicitors to use.
Using Legal Aid Online to make increase requests is much quicker than using the printed forms. You will not have to wait on postal services to send your form to the Board, and to then get an answer back. Completing the application online is also easier than using paper.
We are currently working on making changes to Legal Aid Online to make template increases as easy to use as possible – we expect this will be available later in May. Until these changes are made if you wish to make a civil increase application using the new templates:
- for template increases you do not need to give background details on the case, so at the background section, just type in "template"
- in the work done section, you should tick Other, and then tick the template you require. You can click select to see more information on that particular template.
- You should refer to our guidance included in “Increases in authorised expenditure” or the new printed form to get this information. It is also important to check that you can apply for the template when work is under a particular Category Code. You can refer to our Templates and Category Codes list that was included in “Increases in authorised expenditure” guidance.
- You will be asked to type in the amount of increase requested. You should refer to the guidance or printed form to get the current value of the template.
Please note that if you use a previous lower value, we cannot automatically change the value to the new level – you would have to make a second increase request to raise the increase value.
6. More about Legal Aid Online and the advice and assistance reforms
We’ll be sending you another Update shortly on further Legal Aid Online developments.
Our advice and assistance reform section includes all of the guidance we have issued to you by mail. It includes guidance on using the new forms and using templates for civil increases in authorised expenditure.
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