Legal aid in its current form was created by the Legal Advice and Assistance Act 1949, part of a sweeping programme of social reforms ushered in by the post-war Labour Government. The act implemented recommendations put to Parliament four years earlier by a committee chaired by Lord Rushcliffe, which set out a vision for comprehensive state-backed legal advice provided by lawyers in private practice.
Though Rushcliffe’s model was built around testing by means and merit, in the areas in which it covered – initially criminal law and divorce cases – it was comprehensive. Rushcliffe argued legal aid should not be available merely to the poor – but also “those of small or moderate means”; in 1950 roughly 80% of the population had entitlement to means-tested civil legal aid. The Act also followed Rushcliffe’s remarkably progressive notion that the state should bear the cost but not administer legal aid, which was initially left to the legal profession itself.
