Triennial Review of Legal Aid

Current state

Sometimes legal aid cases need to be reassigned from one lawyer to another. Reassignments can be instigated by the legally aided client, the current lawyer, or in some instances by Legal Aid Services.

Decisions on reassignment requests are made by Legal Aid Services.

Common grounds for reassignment include:

• a conflict of interest or a breakdown in the relationship between the lawyer and the client
• the lawyer is unavailable (e.g. insufficient time or not available on scheduled court dates)
• the case is outside the lawyer’s scope of practice or expertise
• the case is transferred to a different court
• Legal Aid Services made an error in the original assignment.

Problem or opportunity

Reassignments are expected to occur infrequently. However, in 2023/24 more than 20,000 reassignments were processed by Legal Aid Services. While most of these were due to the initial lawyer not being available to take the case, a significant volume of cases are reassigned for other reasons at a later stage.

This is a concern as reassignments:

• can increase the cost of legal aid cases when they occur after the first lawyer has progressed the case. This is due to the duplication of administrative and legal work, and because the new lawyer needs to familiarise themselves with the case and client
• affect Legal Aid Services by creating additional processing work for staff  
• can contribute to churn and delay, especially if it takes time for the new lawyer to get up to speed with the case.

It is difficult for Legal Aid Services to adhere to a policy of only allowing one request for reassignment from the client, given the access to justice concerns that could result from a legal client not being represented.

Following reassignment, the new lawyer is not always provided with an up-to-date client file from the previous lawyer. This can make it difficult for the new lawyer and may contribute to additional costs.

What we are considering

We are considering:

• Reducing or limiting the number of times that legal aid cases can be reassigned, particularly in cases where it relates to relationship breakdowns. This could include putting limits on the number of times a client can terminate the services of their lawyer.
• Requiring that the newly assigned lawyer must be provided with an up-to-date client file from the previous lawyer without delay. This could include changes to complaints and audit processes to enable the Ministry to act when lawyers do not meet these expectations.

Initial analysis

Reducing the number of reassignments and ensuring up-to-date client files are provided to new lawyers could result in savings by reducing duplication and administrative and legal work on reassigned cases.

Change can be disruptive, create uncertainty, and perpetuate existing challenges for clients, particularly for vulnerable people (for example, disabled people, people with mental health or other health conditions, and elderly people). Reducing reassignments may better enable clients to develop a trusting relationship with their lawyer.

However, changes would need to be balanced against the need to ensure that clients still have access to justice and adequate representation.