Covid-19: arrangements for applicant & opponent letters

Applicants

• Intimation/grant/refusal letters: we’ll email these to the applicant. If we don’t hold the email address for the applicant, we‘ll ask you for it. If we can’t obtain an email address, we’d ask you to make contact with your client to inform them about the decision to grant or refuse legal aid.
• Continuations for financial information: we’ll telephone or email the applicant.

Opponents

• Where you give us details of the solicitor acting for the opponent, we will email to them: Intimation of Application/Grant/Refusal.
  We won’t email the opponent directly, only their solicitor.
• Where the opponent is unrepresented or you do not know who the solicitor is, and you can give us an email address for the opponent, we’ll email to them: Intimation of Application/Grant/Refusal/Representation acknowledgement letters.

Please remember that if you provide an email address for the opponent you need to be sure this is a current and accurate email address. If you are not sure, do not send us this information as this risks causing a data breach which could disclose information about your client to an unknown third party.

See full details about notifications of civil legal aid applications to opponents and what we need from you as far as statutory statements in civil legal aid applications are concerned.

If we don’t have the opponent’s email address, there may be circumstances where we cannot intimate the legal aid application to the opponent. However, they will be able to make representations to us, at any time.

We’ll phone or email applicants.

We’ll be changing our approach to collection of payment where individuals experience difficulties as a result of Covid-19.

We’ll publish information on that shortly.

• Continuation letters for financial information: we’ll send you an online notification as normal, but we won’t be able to send anything by post to the applicant. We would ask that wherever possible, you contact your client for the information. We can do it if you send us their email address.
• Refusal letters: we’ll continue to issue online notifications to you and ask that, wherever possible, you notify your client about the refusal of legal aid. We can do it if you send us their email address. We currently don’t send grant letters to applicants and that will remain the procedure.

• Grant/refusal letters: we will not send these to applicants during this period. We will continue to notify you of decisions. Where we have completed a financial assessment we will send this to you and would be grateful if you would make your client aware of its content.