A leading KC and a data expert have shared the human, financial and systemic fallout from the Legal Aid Agency’s system failure, and warned the incident is a breaking point for a system already under pressure.
When the Legal Aid Agency payment portal was shut down in 2024 following the cyber incident, barristers lost access to long-outstanding fees for work already completed, Professor Jo Delahunty KC and data expert Paul Alexander pointed out.
“Many continued to incur tax liabilities on earnings that had not yet been released, creating immediate financial precarity across the profession.”
Professor Delahunty describes legal aid as “the fourth emergency service”, supporting people facing allegations of serious crime, child protection proceedings, immigration crises and housing emergencies, yet operating within a system she says is “held together by good will and habit rather than resources or infrastructure.”
She added:
“We are the last line of defence when everything else collapses. Legal aid practitioners are already working for outdated rates, in crumbling buildings, and now with no reliable payment mechanism at all.”
Documentation referenced in a discussion between Delahunty and Alexander on the podcast Tyfano: Unraveling Data Mysteries shows the Ministry of Justice labelled the LAA platform as one of its most fragile systems in 2022.
Funding of £8.4 million, followed by a further £10.5 million, was allocated to address technical debt, but experts suggest the investment led to monitoring rather than substantive modernisation.
Alexander noted:
“This incident highlights a justice system running on legacy infrastructure. When the platform failed, there was no resilience, no fallback and no real contingency. For practitioners relying on timely payments, that’s unsustainable.”
With the portal frozen, many barristers found themselves effectively without income despite high workloads. Some received temporary contingency payments, but these may later be reclaimed, creating additional uncertainty.
Delahunty added:
“Practitioners feel not just angry but abandoned. Unless the system is rebuilt so people can actually do their jobs, more will walk away. And when that happens, the public will have nowhere to turn.”
The incident raises wider concerns relating to access to justice and system resilience, Delahunty and Alexander suggest, including how long-term digital risks were allowed to persist, why the financial vulnerability of practitioners was not factored into contingency planning, what accountability will look like for ongoing delays and unpaid fees, and when the system will be restored and how future failures will be prevented.
“This isn’t just a payment issue, it’s a systems failure with real consequences for access to justice,” said Alexander.
“If the infrastructure supporting legal aid can’t withstand a predictable shock, then the public is being asked to trust a system that simply isn’t resilient enough.”
The Tyfano: Unraveling Data Mysteries podcast is available on Spotify, Amazon, Apple and Youtube.
