6 March 2008

USE OF SOLICITOR ADVOCATE OR BARRISTER AS AGENT OR ADVOCATE

Head ACLAA has issued this policy letter to all legal representatives. Whilst it refers to Solicitor Advocates as agents in the letter heading, you will note that in the body of the letter it refers also to the instruction of solicitor advocates or barristers to act as agent or advocate. The requirement is WITH IMMEDIATE EFFECT  and affects cases where an agent or advocate is already instructed. This raises some obvious issues, where, for example, a solicitor briefing a chambers to send an advocate. It appears that there must be a named advocate, and substitutions must be approved in advance. 

1 April 2008

ACLAA changes name to AFCLAA

The heading is pretty self explanatory. There is now a unified Armed Forces Criminal Legal Aid Authority, based at Upavon. All part of themove towards implementation of AFA 2006. Head AFCLAA recently offered more detail for practitioners, which will be added to the site in due course.