Legal aid lawyers warned against informal assignment transfer

The Legal Services Agency has asked the New Zealand Law Society to advise lawyers that informal transfer of legal aid assignments from one practitioner to another without Agency knowledge will result in no fee being paid.

Services Delivery Manager Sally Babington says the Agency is the only body that can assign legally aided cases to providers.

“The Agency will assign cases to individual lead providers. A lead provider cannot transfer an assignment to another provider,” she says. “Responsibility and authority for reassignment lies strictly with the Agency and not with the lead provider. We need to know who is providing representation to clients and we manage the assignments.”

Ms Babington says the exception is where appropriate matters are delegated, such as delegation of research to a secondary provider.

“Legal aid payments are taxpayer funds and payments need to reconcile with grants, so payments will only be made to assigned providers,” she says.

“The Agency asks that requests for reassignment or termination of assignments by lead providers are made promptly to allow the Agency reasonable time to assess the need for termination and to reassign the legally aided person if required.”

Full details of the guidelines which the Legal Services Agency follows are available in its Policy on Assignment, Termination of Assignment and Reassignment.

© New Zealand Law Society 2008