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The Government’s plans to slash the country’s Legal Aid budget by £350 million and limit the number of no win, no fee arrangements offered by legal firms has been met with far less opposition than we at Quickie Divorce had initially expected. Whilst we – and any other number of other institutions that offer legal services via ‘non-traditional’ mediums – will be able to accommodate those who can no longer rely upon legal aid to fund their applications for uncontested divorces, cuts to other areas of law are certain to affect some of the UK’s most vulnerable citizens and the lack of opposition to these proposals is not just surprising; it is a real reason for concern. Critics have not only noted that these cuts will deny thousands upon thousands of less affluent individuals access to justice, but also draw attention to the fact that the resulting glut of applications filed by litigants in person will result in our courts becoming saturated with meritless claims. The influx of which will, they argue, severely hinder the efficiency of our legal system. This, in turn, will have an acute and negative impact on both legal professional and all individuals that utilise the courts in order to resolve civil disputes. Now, without statistics, these musing are inconsequential. Consider then, the fact that it has been estimated that as many as 650,000 people will be denied access to Legal Aid if these cutbacks are approved. That’s 650,000 fathers trying to gain access to their children, 650,000 wives desperate to prove that their avaricious husbands are hiding assets in an attempt to deceive courts during divorce proceedings and 650,000 victims left crippled because of botched diagnoses conducted by incompetent physicians. Whichever way you put it, 650,000 vulnerable and desperate people in urgent need of help will left out in the cold, all in the interest of austerity. Some may point to the hundreds of thousands of public sector workers made redundant as a result of our efforts to return to a state of financial permanence in an attempt to justify these reductions. True, the vast majority of the population are making sacrifices, but whilst finding new employment is an exceptionally difficult task in today’s climate, it is still far easier for an unemployed individual to find work than it is for a layperson to navigate Britain’s complex legal systems as a litigant in person which – with the exception of abandoning their pursuit of justice – will be the only option available to such individuals. What’s more – as the recent blighting of the public sector has shown – open the gates, and a flood will follow. Deny justice to the lower classes and, soon, you may just find that it’s inaccessible to all but the rich and powerful. Uncontested divorce is the only area of law within which reductions in Legal Aid are practicable. Cuts in other areas will result in little more than injustice and, ultimately civil courts crippled through strain. Implementing an efficient, effective – and above all else – fair austerity plan was ever going to be an easy task, but, then, official aren’t elected to do easy jobs. Back to the drawing board, Mr Clarke!