Key messages for legal aid suppliers - June 2021

First time High Court bail applications

Further to point two in the April 2021 key message. This key message sets out precisely what the Agency requires from the supplier when submitting legal aid applications for first-time High Court bail applications.

When submitting a legal aid application for a first time High Court bail the supplier must upload:

• The applicant’s declaration (signed by the applicant) for first time High Court bail applications – and title the upload accordingly. The supplier cannot sign the applicant declaration on their behalf; and
• The supplier’s declaration (signed by the supplier) for first time High Court bail applications – and title the upload accordingly. The supplier MUST sign the supplier declaration personally and not on behalf of their firm.

If the supplier cannot secure the applicant’s signature on the declaration, the Agency will accept an interim declaration, or, statement in lieu of declaration as an interim measure.

With regard to bail applications generally – the supplier should ensure that the applicant’s address on LAMS reflects the prison address and not the (intended) bail address, and must always ensure they have sought cover to instruct junior counsel within the level of representation area on LAMS.

Advance notification of LAMS downtime

As part of the preparations for the implementation of new IT support services by the end of 2021, LAMS must migrate onto new servers.

To facilitate the migration to new server infrastructure LAMS will be unavailable from the afternoon of 30 July 2021 to the afternoon of 2 August 2021; further communications will issue in the coming weeks providing full details on the arrangements that LSA will have in place during this period of downtime.

Reregistration

This key message provides an update on the reregistration exercise which took place during June 2021.

By close of business on Friday 2 July 2021, the following had completed the reregistration process:

• 88% of individual barrister accounts
• 82% of individual solicitor accounts
• 78% of barrister businesses; and
• 92% of solicitor businesses.

As of close of business on 2 July 2021, there were no outstanding properly completed individual supplier reregistration requests (other than those that had been queried) and no outstanding business renewal requests.

Thank you to all who completed the process during the month of June. For any individual or businesses which have now ‘expired’ you can still reregister your accounts by following the process detailed in the LAMS Reregistration Manual.

What you might have missed

Please note that the LSANI have published the following on the Agency’s website: