This year’s Legal Wales conference saw delegates return to Bangor University for the first time since 2016.
The opening speeches came from Mark Evans, the new President of the Law Society, who are celebrating 200 years this year. Mark Evans is from North Wales and had spent his entire career in North Wales. He spoke about coming from a working-class background with no connections to law and has had a 28-year career in property and private client work before moving into legal education. He is only the third Welsh-born president of the Law Society. He spoke about the issue of ‘legal deserts’ across England and Wales, but particularly in Wales where high street solicitors are in decline and some communities are left struggling to access legal advice and justice. He has previously stated to Legal Cheek that he wants to “highlight non-traditional routes into the profession”.
Our second opening speech came from Tim Eicke who spoke about his career as a Judge at the European Court of Human Rights and how the rhetoric coming from certain political parties about ‘human rights lawyers and Judges’ is dangerous and a direct attack on democracy. The statistics were that of all the appeals made in relation to asylum in the UK, 29 were heard by a single Judge and dismissed. Only 1 had gone to the full court and whilst breaches of process were found, none of the elements of the decision prevented the person from being deported.
The third opening speech came from Julie James AS, the current Counsel General for the Senedd.
Ms James explained that there is a bill in place ready for the next Welsh government, to be elected in May 2026, creating further devolved powers and laws. However, she stated that there was no plan to fully devolve legislation from Westminster and that Welsh Lawyers would be able to practice in Wales and the same for English lawyers wishing to practice in Wales. As the Welsh Parliament is due for re-election in May, no new bills will be passed before that time.
I joined the breakaway session “Behind the scenes of the criminal justice system” which was an interesting look at the criminal justice process from arrest to conviction with HHJ Rhys Rowlands – The Hon Recorder of Caernarfon, Jenny Hopkins – CPS Wales, Caroline Rees KC, Michael Strain of Strain Solicitors and Jim Colwell for North Wales Police talking us through their stages of a prosecution and how they work with all other relevant parties, which was very interesting. It was good to hear that local duty solicitors have an excellent working relationship with North Wales Police, but clearly work needs to be done to ensure that cases are proceeded with expeditiously for the benefit of all involved. There is hope from professionals that the current reviews from Sir Brian Leveson and David Gauke will see positive changes to the system. This was more of a ‘presentation’ rather than a discussion so there weren’t any follow up questions following the ‘walk-through’ of the process.
The second breakaway session was “How to meet unmet legal need”. This was extremely interesting as it discussed the ‘legal deserts’ faced, particularly in North Wales in relation to social justice matters. The panel for this session was chaired by Ron Davison from Gamlins Law, and the panel consisted of Sue James from North Wales Community Law (and also CEO of LAG), Tracey Horton -Director of Legal Advice Clinic at Bangor University and two students who are case workers for the clinic.
The main issues addressed were a lack of legal aid firms and problems retaining legal talent in a legal aid setting due to higher pay rates being available in different areas of the law and different areas of the UK.
It is quite clear from the discussion that disparities in pay between legal aid and other practice areas is the main issue, alongside cuts to legal aid and lack of talent wishing to enter legal aid areas of law. As it stands, there are only a handful of high street legal aid firms operating in North Wales with some of the gap being covered by Law clinics run by the local universities and by Citizens Advice. Bangor University Legal Advice Clinic have seen a huge increase in clients and North Wales Community Law were already taking on clients for 2026. Ron Davison stated that whilst Gamlins ensured they remained competitive in relation to pay rates between them and their English counterparts, they had to be able to turn over £60,000 a week to be able to sustain this which placed all their staff under pressure and any further cuts to legal aid or the justice system overall may see the firm be forced to make cuts to staff, or close entirely.
The panel asked the delegates if they felt there were any suggestions as to how to improve the situation. Lynne Squires spoke about CILEX apprenticeships and how CILEX apprentices can now obtain level 7 so there were options for firms to take on CILEX apprentices, however it was recognised that Welsh Government have not yet implemented funding for level 7 apprenticeships and that new apprentices would be some way off being able to advocate, which does not assist in the immediate time period.
John Bateman of Brightlink Learning suggested that perhaps a central database of those lawyers able to provide pro-bono advice so that if one person or team could not assist, they had a database they could refer to, to be able to send a member of the public to someone else. He also suggested that the database could be used as a meeting space for practitioners to share information and good practice.
Following conclusion of the breakaway sessions, we returned to the main hall for the presentation of the Sir Samuel Evans Prize 2025 for best undergraduate at a Welsh Law School. This was presented to Matilda Falchetta of Prifysgol Aberystwyth University by The Lady Chief Justice of England and Wales, The Right Honourable, The Baroness Carr of Walton-on-the-Hill.
Baroness Carr then went on to talk about her engagements over the next 12 months and gave credit to all lawyers from across Wales for their hard work in making Wales an excellent country to work in the legal profession. Baroness Carr recognised that there were no Magistrates at the conference and asked that her thanks be passed back to them by anyone able to do so for their hard work. Baroness Carr said that the discussions around the creation of new courts under the Leveson recommendations may be causing upset among Magistrates at a time when hiring and retaining Magistrates, but it is important that they are recognised and supported in their vital work.
Finally, in the evening during dinner, we heard from Helen Molyneaux, Co-Founder of Monumental Welsh Women, discussing their work in creating statues across Wales of women who have shaped Wales and its history on a national level.
Overall, the conference, and the dinner were well attended and the networking and engagement between delegates was excellent and productive.
It is so important for legal professionals across the board to come together, not only to discuss the current position of the industry, but to recognise that justice works best when we all work together.