Breaking the Deadlock

BY 1945 the English political and legal establishments were agreed that radical reform of the funding of civil litigation and an extension of criminal legal aid introduced by the Poor Persons Defence Act 1930 were urgently required. Lord Rushcliffe's Committee, appointed in 1944 in the light of the extraordinary pressure on the provision of legal services during the Second World War, particularly in matrimonial cases, had made a series of recommendations which the great reforming post-War Labour Government accepted in principle. These recommendations were designed to improve access to justice very substantially. The resulting legislation, the Legal Aid Act 1949, was to have very far-reaching effects on the development, growth and financing of the English legal profession and the way in which English lawyers conducted contentious business in the courts, before statutory tribunals and in private arbitration. The Attlee Government's aim to bring legal aid to the disadvantaged was set...