Government plans to make phone calls the main conduit for publicly funded advice in civil cases could increase the average time needed to give advice, according to new research. The government has proposed making a telephone helpline the ?gateway? to all legal aid advice in civil cases. But the Legal Services Research Centre - the independent research division of the Legal Services Commission - has found that telephone advice takes, on average, 14 minutes longer than face-to-face advice, and provides a smaller proportion of tangible outcomes. read more