I got a communication from the Legal Aid Board today. Or rather I should say the Legal Services Commission East Midlands Regions. They apparently wanted to tell me that a certificate for a client had been cancelled.
Well I could have told them that. We stopped doing legal aid work back in 1999 and I think my last case finished a couple of years later.
I can remember this particular client. He was one of my very first clients from when I set up in sole practice in 1994. The case is LONG finished, stored and I think we destroyed the files a couple of years ago (the six year time limit being up).
I see that the certificate is limited to all steps up to and including the hearing on 10 July 1999, which shows how old it is. The certificate was discharged apparently on 20 October 2000 when the final bill was received.
So why are they writing to me about it now?
Because the LSC are about as effective as a cat flap in an elephant house?
My favourite LSC nonsense was last year, when they lost EVERY ONE of our APP8s (the form that you use to change your limitation on a certificate) for a period of about three months. Even when we faxed and e-mailed them. It was just nuts. We had to send them in three or four times before they did anything.