Exclusive: In the latest sign of how hard law firms are being hit by government reforms to legal aid, leading criminal outfit TV Edwards has been forced to let two paralegals go just weeks after it had paid for their police station accreditation training…
The paralegals had apparently taken the decision to pay for their training – which cost a collective £1,000 – as a signal that they had at least medium term futures at TV Edwards
And indeed, that had been the plan, until the spectre of price-competitive tendering (PCT) caused the firm to think again.
TV Edwards senior partner Anthony Edwards told Legal Cheek:
“Two probationary contracts have not been made permanent. We had also hoped to keep them on given that [police station accreditation training] investment, but under PCT we will have to reduce our caseloads.”
Expect more redundancies at other criminal and family law firms as they gear up for the new PCT bidding process, under which far fewer legal aid contracts will be available than in the past.