Droughts and deserts

Abstract

Even when there appear, on the map, to be legal aid providers within an area, advice may still be unavailable in practice. Some providers with contracts are not in fact doing any legal aid work, referred to as ‘dormant contracts’ while others have limited their capacity for legal aid work as a survival strategy, despite being unable to meet demand. High-quality practitioners and organisations cross-subsidise their legal aid work from other income sources and limit their capacity to the amount they can subsidise. This reduces client access, creating advice droughts – shortages of supply in areas which appear to have provision. Advice droughts may centre on a geographical place or on a particular case type or funding type. The chapter argues that the existence of advice deserts and droughts is a market failure.