Legal aid: your records, not just the Legal Aid Agency’s
For legal aid firms, the practice management system has to work alongside the Legal Aid Agency’s own systems, fee schemes that change by contract and date, and reporting the firm’s contract depends on. Choosing one that treats legal aid as an afterthought is expensive.
What 2025 taught firms
In 2025 a cyber attack took the Legal Aid Agency's online systems out of normal use for months. Applications, amendments and claims had to be handled through contingency arrangements, and once services were restored, work done during the outage had to be reconciled. Firms that held a complete record of every application, certificate, claim and payment in their own system were in a far stronger position than those relying on the Agency's records.
What the system has to do
- Fee schemes and rates: fixed fees, hourly rates and escape thresholds, by contract, category and date, so the right rate applies to work done on each day.
- Thresholds: live tracking of costs against fixed fees and escape thresholds, so claims are not under-billed.
- Certificates and limitations: scope and costs limits recorded with alerts before they are reached, and amendments tracked.
- Claims and reconciliation: claims prepared from the matter, reconciled against what the Agency pays, with differences followed up.
- Contract reporting: matter starts, outcomes and the monthly submissions the contract requires.
- Change: the Agency is replacing and changing its digital services, so ask how quickly the vendor keeps up, and who pays.
What to ask, and what to see
- Show a claim prepared from a sample matter, with the right fee scheme and rates applied by date.
- How are applications and claims sent to the Agency: integrated, uploaded or retyped?
- How did your customers manage during the 2025 outage, and what records did the system hold?
- How quickly were the last fee scheme changes delivered, and at what cost?
Technical notes: small decisions, big consequences
Start with the overview: The details that decide the project
Accounts and finance
- Core accounting is still the gold standard
- One-way or two-way sync? Connecting your legal system to Xero
- Units or minutes? How time is recorded
- Your matter and nominal structure
- Making Tax Digital: the firm and its clients
Workflow, data and documents
- Workflow: deep, basic or none?
- Client onboarding and matter inception: portal, e-signature and ID checks working as one
- Custom data: what you rely on, and how you move it
- Precedents, merge codes and macros: your document bank in a new system
Your types of work
- Legal aid: your records, not just the Legal Aid Agency’s (you are here)
- Litigation: Precedent H starts with time recording
- Family: Form E and financial disclosure
- Private client: where does the tax software fit?
Security and access
- Roles or individuals? How user permissions are set up
- Why manage security twice? Linking application security to Microsoft Entra
- How granular is the security inside the system?
- Who can see what in reporting?
- Shared platform, your data: separation, restore and erasure
- When the supplier is the target: where your data lives, who can reach it, and your real risk
Microsoft 365
- How does it connect to Outlook?
- What did you just give it permission to do?
- What happens behind the scenes? Background integrations with Microsoft 365
- OneDrive is not a document management system
- Microsoft 365 is not a backup
Data and decisions
Official sources
Check the detail for yourself at the source. Rules and guidance change, so always use the current version.
- Legal Aid Agency: Contracts, guidance and service updates for legal aid providers.
Where does your firm stand?
Our free practice management review shows how much of your current system you really use and, if you are thinking of moving, builds an independent requirements specification that takes your reasons into account. Nothing is sent to us.
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