The Inner Cities: Law Centres and Legal Services

Abstract

When Mrs Thatcher came to power in 1979, the law centres movement in the United Kingdom was almost a decade old. The 1970s had seen the establishment of local agencies sited in inner cities, committed to providing legal services outside the mainstream legal establishment to clients and client groups ill-served by lawyers and advisers. The early participants in the movement were ambitious and radical, seeking a distinctive identity for law centres which would guarantee them a place in the future development of legal services and a pivotal role in improving access to justice for the members of their local communities. The establishment of North Kensington law centre in 1970 had been followed by Adamsdown, in Cardiff, in 1972 and by law centres in Brent and Camden, both in London, and other similar communities in the following years. Thirty-two existed in 1979. The loose co-ordination of law centres in the 1970s led to the creation of the Law Centres Federation, dedicated to continuing the growth of the movement. When Mrs. Thatcher left office, the number of law centres had increased to sixty: a sure sign of success? Certainly, but the politics of legal services had developed at an ever swifter pace in the 1980s, and by 1989 the government had confidently set out its radical agenda for the new decade. Key measures included a White Paper on the structure of the legal profession and related matters;1 the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990, the key 'enabling' measure of the reforms, followed soon after. Reform of civil procedure itself2 to achieve 'a cheaper and speedier service'3 had been under consideration since 1986, with many proposals impacting on law centres' substantive work in areas such as debt, welfare benefits, and housing. The administration of the legal aid scheme had been transferred to the Legal Aid Board, which, having been established by the Legal Aid Act 1988, had turned its attention to ensuring 'quality' and 'value for money' in the legal aid scheme. How should the law centres movement respond to these issues? If the movement had successfully achieved a distinctive identity at the start of the 1980s, what shape was it in by the end of that decade, and how should it develop in the 1990s? In 1979, defining a 'law centre' was no easy task. The movement itself made no attempt to identify the features of a 'model' law centre, recognizing that the