Key messages for legal aid suppliers - May 2022

Requests in cases with multiple criminal legal aid certificates

Suppliers are asked to note that when a certificate is updated the Agency links the related cases on LAMS for payment purposes e.g. a one counsel certificate will be linked to a two counsel certificate when it issues, so that work conducted under the first certificate will be paid under the second.

However, for processing purposes, the first certificate will be considered to be superseded from the date of the grant of the second certificate. 

Therefore, when making an authority request for a criminal authority, exceptional preparation and/or submitting a contemporaneous record on foot of such a grant, suppliers should ensure that such requests are submitted under the most up to date criminal legal aid certificate reference in each case.

Any requests (save for requests for payment) which are made on prior certificates will be withdrawn.

LAMS reregistration circular, manual and checklist

The window for reregistering your LAMS supplier account and renewing your LAMS business account is now open.

Please remember if you are an account administrator for a firm or a barrister, (barristers act as account administrators for their own businesses), you have to renew your business account after you have reregistered your supplier account if you wish to continue to submit applications on LAMS.

Should you have any queries on any matter related to your reregistration please email the LSANI Registration Team on RegistrationScheme@lsani.gov.uk.

SMS services

Practitioners are reminded that LSA have a LAMS SMS service. This service was established to provide external users of LAMS with an additional communication channel to receive time critical messages relating to system access and availability.

The SMS is separate from LAMS which means that the Agency will be able to send messages to LAMS users regardless of the operational status of LAMS.

Currently there are very few practitioners subscribed to the either the barrister of solicitor SMS service when compared to the number of practitioners registered in LAMS. Given the low take up of the service and the ongoing resourcing costs of the service the Agency is questioning the continued need for an SMS service.

The Agency is content to continue the service however, there would need to be significant improvement in the number of users subscribed to justify the costs of managing and maintaining the service. In order for the service to be continued the Agency would need to see a significant increase in subscriptions by the end of June 2022.

For further details on how to sign up to this SMS service see LSA Circular 19/19 for solicitors and staff or Circular 18/19 for barristers.

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