FAQ
Legal Aid Advice and Assistance and Civil Legal Aid
Advice and Assistance covers office based work, including telephone calls, emails, meetings. It does not cover any court work.
If you have savings in excess of £1716, regardless of your income you will not be eligible for Advice and Assistance. If you have less than that, then you will be eligible if you are in receipt of Universal credit, income-related Employment and Support allowance, income-based Jobseekers allowance, or Income support then you will be automatically eligible for AA.
If you are not in receipt of benefits, then your income must be less than £245 per week to be eligible. The £245 per week is all income you recieve, minus £84.66 for each child that is primarily in your care. If a child is not in your care and you pay maintenance for the child, then that sum will be deducted from your income too.
If you are eligible for Advice and Assistance and in receipt of passport benefits, then you will have no contribution to pay and the legal aid board will cover the cost of all legal work.
If you are not in receipt of benefits, and are eligble based on your income, you may have a contribution to pay. A contribution would be a one off payment to us, to a maximum of £135.
We will do the Advice and Assistance applicaiton on your behalf.
Civil Legal Aid covers Court work. This is the legal aid that you can apply for should you wish to raise a court action, or defend a court action.
The eligibility for Civil Legal Aid is in two parts. We will deal with financial eligibility first. The financial eligibility criteria for Civil Legal Aid is much higher than Advice and Assistance. You can have up to £26,239 disposable income per year, and be eligible for Civil Legal Aid. This means that the legal aid board will calculate what you earn, deduct everything you pay out, and whatever is left is “disposable income”. If you live with a partner, you and your partner’s income will be taken into consideration. We have had clients who earn over £100,000 that are still eligible for Civil Legal Aid.
If you have capital (typically savings but does include other things) over £13,017 you will not be eligible for Civil Legal Aid, regardless of your income.
If you are in receipt of Universal Credit, Income-Based Employment and Support allowance, Income based job seekers allowance, or Income Support, provided you do not have capital exceeding the above limit, you will be eligible
The Legal Aid board will look at a Civil Legal Aid Application in detail. We have to provide 2 statements when submitting a Civil Legal Aid application, one from you and one from a third party, explaining why you consider it reasonable to be awarded legal aid.
The Scottish Legal Aid Board will require to be satisfied it is reasonable for you to be awarded Legal Aid. In some cases, they will want to see evidence of attempts being made to try and resolve the issue before raising court proceedings.
You also have to satisfy the Scottish Legal Aid Board that your case has good prospects of success.
We do the Civil Legal Aid application on your behalf. If you are awarded Legal Aid and in receipt of benefits, then you will not have a contribution to pay.
If you are not in receipt of benefits, but are awarded legal aid based on your income, then you may have a contribution to pay. Your contribution will be a monthly installment, payable to the Legal Aid Board. The level of your contribution will depend on your disposable income.
If you would like to speak to us in more detail about Legal Aid, then please use the Book Now button to make an appointment with our Anna Hutchison who can assist you with that.