FAMILIES who need legal help could find themselves living in an "advice desert" as a result of cuts, solicitors have warned.

The Legal Services Commission (LSC) runs the Legal Aid system and only solicitors with LSC contracts can do that type of work.

Family Legal Aid is available for people on low incomes and is used to help in cases including domestic abuse and custody disputes.

This year the LSC made all solicitors re-apply for family Legal Aid contracts under new criteria.

As a result, hundreds of legal firms who had done that type of work in the past were not given contracts.

In North Devon, before the latest tendering process, there were ten firms of solicitors paid to do family Legal Aid work.

From October, there will be one provider in Bideford, two in Barnstaple — and none in Ilfracombe, Braunton, or South Molton.

The Journal spoke to Legal Aid clients involved in harrowing cases in North Devon who said they would have been totally lost without the help.

Many family Legal Aid clients are vulnerable. One woman, with no legal knowledge, feared she would have had to represent herself in court if Legal Aid had been difficult to obtain.

Pending appeals, the three firms available to do that kind of work from October will be: Rosie Bracher, in Barnstaple; Slee Blackwell, in Barnstaple; and Brewer Harding and Rowe, in Bideford.

Those three firms will be expected to cover an area stretching from the Cornish border, skirting north Dartmoor and up to the fringes of West Somerset.

Mrs Bracher said the "worst possible scenario had come to pass" for the public and the "savage reduction" was less to do with quality of services than cutting the Legal Aid budget.

That claim was denied by the LSC, which was confident the service would not suffer as a result of the changes, although it did admit it was surprised by the reduction in number of firms given contracts.

The problem was made worse, Mrs Bracher said, because solicitors were restricted by a conflict of interest rule, which meant they could not take on a case if they had previous professional dealings with anyone connected with it.

If there are fewer firms doing family Legal Aid work, the likelihood of there being a conflict of interest is greater.

In addition, the firms which won the Legal Aid contracts have a limited number of cases they can take on in any year, and when they reach their limit, clients will have to look elsewhere.

Mrs Bracher was delighted to get her family Legal Aid contract but she was concerned that by cutting the number of firms, people would be unable to get quality legal advice when they needed it.

She feared that vulnerable people, particularly in outlying rural areas, would now find yet another obstacle placed in their way if they had a legal emergency which was not a criminal matter.

She also said the three offices doing family Legal Aid work would be under huge pressure to expand.

She said: "The difficulty for all firms will be undertaking all this work.

"The courts and CAFCASS (Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service) are under pressure, with the court budget being cut".

The Law Society, which represents solicitors, said the cut in contracts nationally would make it more difficult for people to get Legal Aid in family law cases. It has urged Justice Minister Jonathan Djanogly to review the process.

Andrew Woo, a solicitor at Brewer, Harding and Rowe in Bideford, said: "To leave just three firms in the North Devon area is just incredible. We are not going to be able to cope with the need out there for services."

He said solicitors who specialised in family Legal Aid did so because they found it interesting and had a social conscience. If they wanted to get rich, they would have chosen a different type of law, he said.

He believed the LSC had badly interpreted the criteria used to award contracts, unfairly punishing some firms.

Michael Oerton, a Barnstaple solicitor with 48 years experience, has lodged a formal appeal with the LSC after his firm did not get a family Legal Aid contract.

He said the three firms who had been awarded contracts in North Devon would not be able to cope with the number of clients needing help, and conflicts of interest would highly restrict the service available.

He said he was not concerned about loss of business for himself, because he had other cases to deal with, including criminal court work.

Solicitors told the Journal that family Legal Aid was less financially profitable than other work.

Crosse, Wyatt, Verney and Ayre, in South Molton, is also appealing after the firm was not given a family Legal Aid contract.

One of its partners, Christopher Punt, said the calculation of the tendering criteria had been unfair and had an urban bias, with an agenda for large-scale provision by fewer providers.

He said the LSC was wrong in thinking its approach would improve "efficiency", but it would, instead, bring "considerable detriment" to people in rural areas.

Romano Sidoli, a solicitor at Slee Blackwell, while pleased his firm had successfully secured a contract, said the cut in the number of family Legal Aid suppliers overall would have a negative impact in a rural area like North Devon.

Geoffrey Cox QC, MP for Torridge and West Devon, said: "I am deeply concerned that the legacy of the Labour Government's damaging changes to the Legal Aid system will be further to erode the availability of publicly-funded legal services in rural areas."

Mr Cox said he had made "urgent representations" to the Secretary of State for Justice, Kenneth Clarke, and held a meeting with him and Legal Aid minister Jonathan Djanogly shortly before Parliament rose.

But he said the "appalling state" of the public finances made cuts inevitable. In addition, Mr Cox was "dismayed" by the LSC, which seemed, he believed, "oblivious to the importance of well-run independent local firms of solicitors, particularly in rural areas".

The LSC told the Journal that 282,000 new family Legal Aid "matter starts" (new case allowances) had been allocated under the new contract in England and Wales, subject to appeals.

The number of new matter starts was broadly equivalent to that of last year, the LSC said. But, subject to appeals, overall provider numbers would be reduced from 2,400 to 1,300.

The LSC said that to ensure adequate coverage, and avoid conflicts of interest, it had insisted on a minimum of five providers in each "procurement area" (such as Devon).

And bigger, often rural, areas were sub-divided into "access points" to ensure proper spread of advice provision, the LSC said.

The LSC said it was verifying information provided by successful bidders and appeals would be considered.

An LSC spokesman said: "An insistence on ensuring quality advice where it is needed is at the heart of our tendering process.

"We are confident we have achieved quality advice provision throughout England and Wales."

One LSC procurement area is the county of Devon.

And one LSC "access point" stretches from Lynton in the north, to the border of Plymouth in the south, to Axminster in the east, and Holsworthy in the west.

Only the three North Devon firms given contracts will be available for family Legal Aid in that "access point" area.