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Justice Minister Simon Power will go to a cabinet meeting on Monday with a plan to fix serious and deep-seated problems in the legal aid system.
A shock review report issued on Friday has revealed the system is in crisis.
The report says administrative costs are out of control, it is open to abuse and is being undermined by incompetent, unscrupulous lawyers looking after their own interests.
Dame Margaret Bazley, the former top public servant who headed the review team, says some lawyers and defendants are "abusing the system to the detriment of clients, the legal aid system, the courts and the taxpayer".
Power says things have to change - and fast.
"When someone as experienced in providing services to the public as Dame Margaret talks about system-wide failings, a system open to abuse, and appalling behaviour, we know we have a problem," he says.
The report is "very concerning" and the Government will quickly implement its recommendations.
A key recommendation is that the Legal Services Agency, which administers legal aid, should lose its independent status and be folded into the Ministry of Justice.
Another is that there should be a system for quickly expelling lawyers who are incompetent or dishonest.
Others include allowing only accredited lawyers to provide legal aid services, improving monitoring to detect fraud and over-claiming, and a specialist panel to review suspect lawyers' conduct.
Legal aid helps those who can't pay for their court defence so they are not deprived of a fair hearing, and the review found poor practices included:
- Lawyers making sentencing submissions without having read the pre-sentence report;
- Lawyers ignorant of legal principles and not realising their own ignorance;
- Lawyers failing to turn up at court;
- "Car boot" lawyers using District Court law library phones as their office numbers, and using interviewing rooms as their offices;
- Lawyers gaming the system by delaying a plea or changing pleas part-way through to maximise payments;
- Lawyers who demanded top-up payments from clients who did not understand legal aid; and
- Widespread abuse of the preferred lawyer policy by duty solicitors, including taking backhanders for recommending particular lawyers to applicants.
