Key messages for legal aid suppliers - August 2022

Exceptional Preparation – visibility of letters and certificates

Counsel are asked to note that where their instructing solicitor makes a request for Exceptional Preparation in criminal matters on their behalf, that any certificates and covering letters issued to counsel will be directly available to counsel on LAMS. Solicitors will not have access to same. Accordingly, counsel are asked to ensure that they carry out a check on LAMS in such cases, to ensure that they have access to their Certificates of Exceptional Preparation and covering letters.

SMS services

As advised in July 2022 key messages, practitioners are reminded that from September 2022 the Agency will no longer issue an SMS for planned LAMS outages.

Practitioners who are currently subscribed to the SMS service should take the necessary steps to unsubscribe from the service. Details on how to unsubscribe can be found in paragraph 3.2 of the July 2022 key messages.

LAMS annual reregistration exercise

The annual LAMS reregistration exercise ended on 30 June 2022 however we are yet to receive a number of supplier and business account reregistrations.

If you have not yet renewed your individual or business account then you will no longer be able to access LAMS. Practitioners are encouraged to reregister their individual supplier accounts and if you are an account administrator for your firm (all barristers are account administrators) the Agency would urge you to complete your business renewal immediately.