Pardoes announced as largest provider of legal aid in Somerset

April 5, 2012 - PRLog -- The LSC runs the legal aid scheme in England and Wales, working in partnership with solicitors. As the only law firm in Somerset that offers publicly funded family, criminal and clinical negligence legal advice across all three of its offices, Pardoes performed the largest volume of legal aid work in Somerset between April 2010 and March 2011.

Kit O’Brien, Head of Family Law and Managing Partner at Pardoes, says, “We remain firmly committed to supporting the communities in which we work by providing legally aided assistance and representation to those who are eligible for it. Our commitment is demonstrated by the increase in the number of new cases we are able to undertake following the most recent Legal Services Commission tendering process for family law.

We do however have very serious concerns that the proposed government cuts to family legal aid will have a very damaging effect upon a large number of our clients who will no longer be able to access justice with the assistance of legal aid regardless of their financial circumstances. It now seems certain that those cuts will be implemented and our concern is that the vast majority of people simply do not appreciate the extent of the cuts and how they will be directly affected by them.  We are actively exploring how we may then be able to assist those clients but until that time will continue to undertake legally aided work across all of our offices.”

Additionally, Pardoes handled the largest volume of publicly funded criminal work over the same period in Somerset, with 817 visits to clients in police stations..

Pardoes is a well-established South West legal firm, with 15 partners and 86 staff across its Bridgwater, Yeovil and Taunton offices. It offers a full range of legal services and has expanded many of its specialist sectors in the past two years. During that time new partners have been appointed to head up its core business divisions in the fields of private client, family, property, litigation and commercial and employment work.