It?s early October 2013 in central London. There?s a long queue of criminal defence lawyers snaking down Euston Road in the direction of the old Clerkenwell magistrates?court. The lawyers? faces have a look of grim determination. A meeting is about to start about the future of legal aid, and solicitors and barristers from London and around the country have assembled to deliberate, listen, let off steam. Organising the meeting is the London Criminal Courts Solicitors? Association (LCCSA), 65 years old this year.

Establishing standards

The LCCSA was founded in 1948, the same year in which whipping and hard labour were removed from the court?s sentencing powers, perhaps to the relief of the thieves and swindlers appearing at that other defunct court house, Bow Street magistrates? court. The imposing figures of Claude Hornby, Arthur Prothero, Samuel Coleman and a handful of others were worried about the looming Legal Aid Act. Legal aid was seen by the then small number of lawyers practising in central London courts as a ghastly threat, both to their income and tostandards. As former president Jeffrey Gordon put it, "Criminal practitioners were worried that legal aid would drive out the paying client.? The other aim, he said, was to establish ethical standards "so as to distinguish members from what one might call the more doubtful practitioners.?

Past president of the LCCSA, HHJ Timothy Lawrence, who did his articles at ClaudeHornby and Cox, puts it bluntly: "It was for the elite criminal practitioners and they were veryjealous as to who they let in.? There was a concern that criminal law was attracting a sleazier, undesirable side of the profession, an impression not aided by the solicitor caught trying to smuggle a raincoat and a false moustache into the Old Bailey for his client to make good his escape. The founder members wanted the association to confer a hithertoabsent status on criminal lawyers. Members also agreed a protocol to allow them to pass work to each other without it being pinched by the unscrupulous.

The applications of those who applied to join were analysed thoroughly and proposed members were routinely blackballed. It was considered a great honour to join. One solicitor who was refused membership began high court proceedings to force the association to let him join. He remained a non-member. Vivien Symons, the first female member of the LCCSA, said in an interview in the Advocate not long before she died that she had been thrilled to be proposed for membership by Claude Hornby. "You?d only be proposed for it if you were a reasonable advocate,? she recalled.

Criminal law in London was then a much smaller world in which a small group of solicitors? firms undertook much of the criminal defence work, and the LCCSA remained an exclusive, largely West End dominated club. Early presidents included celebrated practitioners of the post-war period such as Sir David Napley, JB Wheatley, Victor Lissack and TV Edwards. Typically, solicitors? offices would be situated right next to court rooms.

Claude Hornby and Cox was next to Great Marlborough Street metropolitan police court (later magistrates? court) where, long before the Crown Prosecution Service existed, police officers queued up to prosecutetheir prisoners, giving evidence before a stipendiary magistrate. Timothy Lawrence recalls one such stipe at Great Marlborough Street who, when called a "bald old bastard? by a departing prisoner, declared to the public gallery, "He is quite right on two of those points.?

So many dinners

Working dinners dominated the Association?s calendar. Stephen Dawson recalls that the annual dinner was initially a chance for solicitors to entertain the grand old stipendiary magistrates, usually barristers, some of whom had been sitting since before the war: "Solicitors, particularly those in crime, were thought to be a little below stairs, and this was a chance to raise their profile?.

Sandra Dawson, who has been the LCCSA administrator for 25 years, recalls that when she started there were about 300 members. In those days before computers, members? details were kept on index cards and communication was a laborious task. She has seen enormous changes, she says. "The Association was far more social back then,? sherecalls. "There were some working dinners, but there was no training, and the membership was quite exclusive.? But the old boys? club began to change significantly. The first woman president was District Judge Sue Green, followed in the next few years by June Venters QC, Angela Campbell and Linda Woolley. Training was begun in earnest by Julia Holman and has expanded enormously - members now routinely click onto the association?s webinars for their CPD points. Membership grew and became much more diverse, and in time there were more than 1,000 members.

As membership grew, so did the annual dinner. Held at various swanky hotels including the Savoy and the Dorchester, the event grew in size - when one time president Mark Haslam of Burton Copeland spoke at the dinner, there were 1,200 people there - and it was on occasion a notoriously noisy and drunken affair.

Mark Haslam was also instrumental in establishing the association?s European Conferences in the 1980s and he holds at least one proud record. "I have the dubious honour of being the only member to have attended each and every one of the trips,? hesays. The most interesting trip, hesays, was the one toBerlin before the wall came down. The most memorable? "Anyone who went to Dublin willinstantly remember a pub called the Johnny Fox; that is if anything remains of their recollection!? European conferences remain an important and much needed opportunity to spend time withfellow professionals to talk about law and much besides.

Higher profile

Communication with members changed too. The dry newsletter sent to members had typically been a densely typed reproduction of the association?s minutes and responses to new legislation. In 1995, the LCCSA magazine, The London Advocate, appeared and immediately became an important source of news, views, information and guidance, binding London solicitors in its unflagging spirit of comradeship.

Early editions reveal anxiety about some familiar issues. In the very first edition, the magazine reports on the Lord Chancellor Lord Mackay?s plans for legal aid reforms and competitive tendering. In issue number 3 in March 1996, there was concern about the drop in the amount of work in magistrates? courts. The July 1999 edition carries an article by future president Rob Brown about cuts to legal aid and the importance of retaining "solicitor of choice?. Other back copies are a gallop through such reforms as Carter, the Auld report, Narey courts, block contracting and fixed fees, and reveal that, even as consultations, Home Secretaries and Lord Chancellors came and went, the Advocate remained a reassuring and entertaining constant.

Already by the 1970s, the association was being consulted by the Home Office on legislation and fees, regularly responded to consultations and worked with the Law Society?s criminal law committee. In 1979, the LCCSA submitted evidence to the Royal Commission on Criminal Justice. The association now wielded some clout with legislators. The LCCSA?s role was changing.

A campaigning organisation

Campaigning became an important part of the work. The association responds to the stream of consultations and is represented on significant groups and bodies within the criminal justice system, influencing and shaping policy. Greg Powell, another past president and one-time chief executive of the association, says
that, in some ways, events forced the LCCSA to change character and become what it is today. "There has been such an enormous change in the last 10 to 15 years.? he says. "There was no longer a convivial inside track in which representatives from the LCCSA could negotiate. The changes have been so large and severe that the government didn?t want to work that way any more.

The LCCSA had to become a more campaigning organisation, with the ability to present evidence and organise mass responses to consultations.? He pays tribute too to past presidents Rob Brown and June Venters who vigorously resisted the Carter reforms, the market and tendering proposals which were the wellspring of consolidation plans that remain today.

The present day committee is strengthened by the experienced presence of past presidents like Greg Powell, Paul Harris and Raymond Shaw. Paul Harris says it was exciting and a great honour to be president. "I think our great achievement has been in becoming an effective campaigning and lobbying organisation and in becoming highly regarded by other agencies in the criminal justice system,? he says. "The trick is to balance the interests of our diverse membership of owners, employees, freelancers, CPSlawyers and the rest. I am proud of our reputation and of remaining important to our membership.?

Greg Powell agrees. "The modern LCCSA has succeeded in being thought of as of value to members, resisting PCT, defending collective interests, mobilising members, and being able to help shape events.?

Birthday reflections

The organisation has evolved and changed out of all recognition. Where once the LCCSA was a cosy, closed, inward looking club for respectable middle- class solicitors worried about the menace of legal aid, the association is now an effective,inclusive pressure group, campaigning against successive governments? assaults on the same legal aid system.

The exclusive London club doesn?t exist any more. What has replaced it is on view at that October legal aidmeeting: solicitors and lawyers from scattered parts of London, from big firms and small, sole practitioners, self-employed advocates and prosecutors as well as associate and honorary members, are taking their seats. The LCCSA represents them all. The debate is vigorous, serious, angry, important. Sixty- five years on, the LCCSA has grown up. Not retiring, just getting started.

- Oliver Lewis Solicitor and Higher Court Advocate