The idea sounds noble – wrap Lady Justice in NHS-blue, slap a clipboard in her hand, and tell her to stop charging by the hour like she’s a Mayfair escort. Equality before the law, free at the point of use, barristers on fixed salaries instead of billing like it’s a yacht fund – what’s not to love?
Well, quite a lot actually, depending on whether you want your conveyancing done by a man with a stapler from Rymans and a law degree off the back of a Corn Flakes packet.
Let’s not kid ourselves. Nationalisation, in theory, sounds like the great leveller. It worked – sort of – for health, so why not justice? Why not make the court system as universal as the NHS? You sue, you defend, you adjudicate – everyone’s a winner. Except, of course, for anyone trying to handle international commercial litigation without having to queue behind Doris and her neighbour dispute.
The NHS didn’t ban Harley Street. Private medicine still thrives. BUPA’s still gouging. Every retired colonel with a funny mole still has a consultant on speed dial. But that’s because the NHS handles colds, cancer, and clogged arteries – things that affect the masses. Global legal services? That’s a different beast entirely. The UK legal sector isn’t some GP surgery in Scunthorpe – it’s a global shop window, and it sells English law like it's Savile Row for statutes.
Strip it of its prestige, shove everyone into a state-funded queue, and you don’t just improve access for the little guy – you clobber the entire ecosystem. Clifford Chance doesn’t thrive because of Legal Aid. It thrives because Saudi billionaires and Chinese conglomerates choose London when they want neutrality, excellence, and discretion – not because their barrister was handed to them by Legal Triage Line 9.
Nationalising legal services, if done with the usual political ham-fistedness, risks driving the Rolls-Royces of our legal world straight into the sea. You think high-end legal talent will stick around on a civil service pay scale, working under fluorescent lights in a government building full of MDF desks and the faint smell of boiled cabbage? Please. They’ll be in Singapore before you can say "pro bono".
And yet, here's the twist: nationalisation could solve one of the ugliest distortions in the current system – the SLAPP. Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation. When the rich and powerful weaponise defamation law to silence critics. Not to win. Just to hurt. Just to bleed the journalist dry, intimidate the whistleblower, and bury inconvenient truths under a mountain of paperwork. While the UK has recently introduced some anti-SLAPP protections related to economic crime, there is still no comprehensive legislation to prevent the use of litigation to suppress public interest journalism or whistleblowing.
Why does it work? Because justice is expensive, and the scales aren’t balanced. The rich can afford endless litigation, while the rest of us fold, settle, or shut up.
Now imagine a National Justice Service that actually works. Where facing a SLAPP means you're backed not by crowdfunding or goodwill, but by competent, state-funded defence. Suddenly, the plutocrat isn’t up against a terrified freelancer – he’s up against the state. That changes the game.
SLAPPs rely on inequality. A properly designed public legal system could bulldoze that imbalance. With strong triage and early strike-out powers, these lawsuits could be binned before they metastasise – like cosmetic surgery on the NHS. “Sorry sir, suing someone because they called you ‘shady’ isn’t clinically necessary.”
But – and here comes the footnote nobody prints – a rich man can still pick up the phone to his silk and launch a SLAPP anyway. Nationalising legal defence doesn’t stop legal offence. If private practice still exists – and it almost certainly will – then the oligarch, the kleptocrat, the litigious billionaire, will simply bypass the queue. He’ll weaponise the remaining private system like a cut-price missile silo.
So unless you also bring in real reform – anti-SLAPP legislation, early dismissal powers, mandatory cost penalties for vexatious claims, and stronger public interest defences – you’ve just handed the bullied a better shield, while letting the bully keep his sword.
We need judges trained to sniff out the stink of intimidation disguised as litigation. We need transparency on who’s funding these suits, especially when it’s flowing through offshore accounts with fewer vowels than morals. And we need a legal culture that treats abuse of process not as strategy, but as a form of perjury by proxy.
And now, just as the dust begins to settle, along comes AI, ready to throw the whole profession into the shredder. Algorithms now churn out pleadings, spot inconsistencies, cross-reference precedent, and write entire contracts before a human can open Outlook – though not without risk. Courts have already sanctioned lawyers for relying on hallucinated case law produced by chatbots, and the need for human oversight remains critical. Entire swathes of the profession – especially the £300/hour memo merchants – are staring at the abyss.
But don’t get too excited. AI won't kill the expensive lawyer – it’ll make them even more expensive.
Because when the machines can do 80% of the work, the top-tier human becomes even more valuable – not for their typing speed, but for their judgement. Their timing, their nose for when to press, when to settle, and how to spin a narrative that lands with judges, juries, and the front page of the FT.
AI can't walk into court and read the room. It can't catch a raised eyebrow from a judge or decide when to pivot under cross-examination. It can draft and summarise, but it can't understand risk like a seasoned KC who's already lost sleep over six-figure damages. who's already lost sleep over six-figure damages.
So yes, the mediocre may vanish – replaced by machine-assisted paralegals with cheerful avatars and 24/7 availability – but the top brass? They’ll adapt, integrate AI into their arsenal, and charge even more for being the last real brain in the room.
So build your National Justice Service. But build it like a smart NHS – not one that pretends it can do everything, for everyone, forever, but one that prioritises what matters: protection from abuse, defence against the powerful, and access to justice in the moments that actually shape lives.
Let it handle the essentials – housing tribunals, wrongful dismissal, family court, discrimination, asylum, criminal defence. The emergencies of law. Not everything needs a KC and a client dinner at the Ivy. Give people solid legal cover when they can’t afford it and can’t afford not to have it.
But don’t shackle the high end. If you want a silk in a three-piece to sue a newspaper on your behalf because someone said your hedge fund smells a bit fascist – fine. Go private. Pay for it. That’s your Harley Street moment. But don’t let the public system bankroll the litigation tantrums of oligarchs and charlatans. And certainly don’t let it be used against whistleblowers and watchdogs.
In fact, make it clear: if your goal is to silence the public, you’ll be litigating uphill – with the system designed to protect expression, not strangle it with procedural costs.
And while we’re at it, let’s not forget: when the police sue, when the King prosecutes, when the Crown brings an action – that’s us paying for it. Taxpayers. Citizens. The public purse is on the hook for every hour billed, every motion filed, every courtroom theatre performance in the name of public interest – or political convenience. So we deserve accountability. Because justice may be priceless in principle, but in practice it costs an absolute fortune – and someone's paying, usually someone without a voice in the room.
The result? A justice system with two clear principles:
- You will not be destroyed by litigation simply because you’re poor.
- You will not use litigation to destroy others simply because you’re rich.
Layer on AI where appropriate – let it handle the boilerplate and precedent, freeing up real lawyers for real problems. Don’t fear the tech – fear the lack of vision.
Because if we get this right, we won’t just reform justice, we’ll futureproof it. And if we get it wrong? We’ll build a state-run call centre for miscarriages of justice, while the rich fly first class on a private legal jet, SLAPP writs in one hand and a King’s Counsel in the other – both funded, one way or another, by the rest of us.
Your move, Lord Chancellor.
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