IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ifs/fistud/v20y1999i3p261-286.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The reform of Legal Aid in England and Wales

Author

Listed:
  • Neil Rickman
  • Paul Fenn
  • Alastair Gray

Abstract

Legal aid expenditure has risen dramatically in recent years, prompting attention from successive governments. A prominent theme of past and present government reform proposals has been the shifting of risk away from the taxpayer towards lawyers, clients and insurers by altering the means by which legal aid lawyers are paid. This paper explores this theme by presenting information on legal aid expenditure trends over the last two decades and then considering whether payment mechanisms have contributed to this performance. Finally, it reviews previous and current reform proposals in this area. It concludes that, because risk-shifting also alters incentives, it is essential that reform recognises and monitors these.

Suggested Citation

  • Neil Rickman & Paul Fenn & Alastair Gray, 1999. "The reform of Legal Aid in England and Wales," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 20(3), pages 261-286, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:ifs:fistud:v:20:y:1999:i:3:p:261-286
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.ifs.org.uk/fs/articles/0008a.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rickman, Neil, 1994. "The Economics of Contingency Fees in Personal Injury Litigation," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 10(1), pages 34-50, Spring.
    2. Gravelle, Hugh & Waterson, Michael, 1993. "No Win, No Fee: Some Economics of Contingent Legal Fees," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 103(420), pages 1205-1220, September.
    3. Antony Dnes & Neil Rickman, 1998. "Contracts for Legal Aid: A Critical Discussion of Government Policy Proposals," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 5(3), pages 247-265, May.
    4. B. Douglas Bernheim & Michael D. Whinston, 1985. "Common Marketing Agency as a Device for Facilitating Collusion," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 16(2), pages 269-281, Summer.
    5. Fenn, Paul & Rickman, Neil, 1999. "Delay and Settlement in Litigation," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 109(457), pages 476-491, July.
    6. Gray, Alastair M, 1994. "The Reform of Legal Aid," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 10(1), pages 51-67, Spring.
    7. Frank H. Stephen & James H. Love & Alan A. Patterson, 1994. "Deregulation of conveyancing markets in England and Wales," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 15(4), pages 102-118, November.
    8. Tony Culyer, 1989. "Cost-containment in Europe," Working Papers 062chedp, Centre for Health Economics, University of York.
    9. Jean-Jacques Laffont & Jean Tirole, 1993. "A Theory of Incentives in Procurement and Regulation," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262121743, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lambert Eve-Angéline & Chappe Nathalie, 2014. "Litigation with Legal Aid versus Litigation with Contingent/Conditional Fees," Review of Law & Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 10(1), pages 95-115, March.
    2. Roland Kirstein & Neil Rickman, 2004. ""Third Party Contingency" Contracts in Settlement and Litigation," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 160(4), pages 555-575, December.
    3. Yannick Gabuthy & Pierre-Henri Morand, 2019. "Lawyer Fee Arrangements and Litigation Outcomes: An Auction-Theoretic Perspective," Working Papers of BETA 2019-03, Bureau d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée, UDS, Strasbourg.
    4. Kirstein, Roland & Rickman, Neil, 2001. "FORIS contracts: Litigation Cost Shifting and Contingent Fees in Germany," CSLE Discussion Paper Series 2001-04, Saarland University, CSLE - Center for the Study of Law and Economics.
    5. Deffains, Bruno & Desrieux, Claudine, 2015. "To litigate or not to litigate? The impacts of third-party financing on litigation," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 178-189.
    6. Gabuthy Yannick & Lambert Eve-Angéline, 2011. "English Rule and Frivolous Suits: Conditional versus Hourly Fees," Review of Law & Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 7(1), pages 72-85, April.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Camille Chaserant & Sophie Harnay, 2013. "The regulation of quality in the market for legal services: Taking the heterogeneity of legal services seriously," European Journal of Comparative Economics, Cattaneo University (LIUC), vol. 10(2), pages 267-291, August.
    2. Heyes, Anthony & Rickman, Neil & Tzavara, Dionisia, 2004. "Legal expenses insurance, risk aversion and litigation," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 107-119, March.
    3. Camille Chaserant & Sophie Harnay, 2010. "Déréglementer la profession d’avocat ? Les apories de l’analyse économique," Working Papers hal-04140922, HAL.
    4. Zhou, J., 2010. "Access to justice : An economic approach," Other publications TiSEM 9d70f451-35c4-4878-92bf-7, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    5. Frank H. Stephen, 2013. "Lawyers, Markets and Regulation," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 14803.
    6. Emons, Winand & Garoupa, Nuno, 2004. "The Economics of US-Style Contingent Fees and UK-Style Conditional Fees," CEPR Discussion Papers 4473, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    7. Winand Emons, 2007. "Conditional versus contingent fees," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 59(1), pages 89-101, January.
    8. Roland Kirstein & Neil Rickman, 2004. ""Third Party Contingency" Contracts in Settlement and Litigation," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 160(4), pages 555-575, December.
    9. Qiao, Yue, 2013. "Legal effort and optimal legal expenses insurance," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 179-189.
    10. Luke Garrod & Bruce Lyons, 2011. "Early Settlement and Errors in Merger Control," Working Paper series, University of East Anglia, Centre for Competition Policy (CCP) 2011-05, Centre for Competition Policy, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    11. Thibaut Mastrolia & Zhenjie Ren, 2018. "Principal-Agent Problem with Common Agency without Communication," Working Papers hal-01534611, HAL.
    12. Lorenzo Sacconi, 2011. "The case against lawyers’ contingent fees and the misapplication of principal-agent models," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 32(2), pages 263-292, October.
    13. Thibaut Mastrolia & Zhenjie Ren, 2017. "Principal-Agent Problem with Common Agency without Communication," Papers 1706.02936, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2018.
    14. Antony Dnes & Neil Rickman, 1998. "Contracts for Legal Aid: A Critical Discussion of Government Policy Proposals," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 5(3), pages 247-265, May.
    15. Klein, Michael, 1996. "Competition in network industries," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1591, The World Bank.
    16. Rodrigo M. S. Moita & Claudio Paiva, 2013. "Political Price Cycles in Regulated Industries: Theory and Evidence," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 5(1), pages 94-121, February.
    17. MARINI, Marco, 1996. "Property Rights and Market : Employee Privatization as a Cooperative Bargaining Process," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 1996023, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    18. Henrekson, Magnus & Johansson, Dan, 2010. "Firm Growth, Institutions and Structural Transformation," Ratio Working Papers 150, The Ratio Institute.
    19. Simon P. Anderson & Régis Renault, 2011. "Price Discrimination," Chapters, in: André de Palma & Robin Lindsey & Emile Quinet & Roger Vickerman (ed.), A Handbook of Transport Economics, chapter 22, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    20. Yuzhou Jiang & Ramteen Sioshansi, 2023. "What Duality Theory Tells Us About Giving Market Operators the Authority to Dispatch Energy Storage," The Energy Journal, , vol. 44(3), pages 89-110, May.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • K40 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - General
    • L50 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy - - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ifs:fistud:v:20:y:1999:i:3:p:261-286. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Emma Hyman (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ifsssuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.