By Gabriel Princewill-
The Solicitors Regulation Authority is launching an ambitious research into gaps in access to justice in the Uk.
The regulator signed the contract yesterday, Thursday, commissioned the study aiming to find what impact any gaps might have on different groups of consumers. It is sponsored by an external provider.
The SRA told this publication the details of the contract were confidential and it wouldn’t be revealing the sums of money involved. The research is to be conducted across England and Wales, and will use a broad range of techniques in identify a sizeable pool of respondents for the research.
The research is expected to last about six months and centres around achieving regulating objectives and increasing access to justice.
Led by Professors Irene Scopelliti (pictured) and Zachary Estes from Bayes Business School of City University London, the study will initially seek to identify different groups of consumers based on their individual needs and behaviours in the context of legal issues. The research seeks to discover gaps in the existing legal provision, with a view to testing policy interventions which could potentially address these gaps.
Affordability is often an issue for many litigants who cannot afford the high prices solicitors charge, but legal fees vary across the profession but are not always immediately accessible to consumers.
Lack of adequate knowledgeable about the best way to obtain reliable information pertaining to their case is widespread in the Uk, and the research is expected to improve the way individuals can be signposted to the right places, or how information can be made more readily available to particular classes of individuals or the population as a whole.
Litigants in person is not uncommon in the Uk, but many of such individuals can have intervention before cases go to court, if they know where to go.
In April 2020, the Access to Justice Foundation and Ministry of Justice launched the Legal Support for Litigants in Person (LSLIP) Grant, a two-year programme funding a range of earlier intervention services for litigants in person. LSLIP is funding 11 grant projects across England and Wales that deliver advice on a national, regional and local scale, to litigants in person at different stages of their problem within several areas of civil and family law.
However, the SRA says its focus really is in establishing how much information is generally available to members of the public to obtain affordable solicitors, so that they are not litigants in person.
A spokesperson for the SRA told The Eye Of Media.Com: ”It is about finding out what it is we need to know that we don’t know, finding out what is necessary to get more clients to be able to access legal services. A lot of people don’t know what to do and don’t always ask a regulated provider, so we want to discover whether people fit into specific groups when it comes to accessing legal services and getting their case heard.
Many people do not even know where to start and are not equipped in filling forms required for a legal case.
Anna Bradley, chair of the SRA said: ‘We know that many people don’t access the legal services they need and that’s why we have commissioned this independent research.
‘We want to understand which groups of people are most affected and why. This will in turn help us all to understand what needs to be done to help tackle the problems and then work out what part we might all need to play.’