| Features |
Mutual interest model |
Purchaser-supplier model |
| Predominant ideals |
Liberal legalism |
Administration |
| Professionalism |
Bureaucracy |
| Social service legal professionalism |
Efficiency and effectiveness |
| Legal services for the poor |
Integrated, access-to-justice approach |
| Co-operative federalism |
Compartmentalised federalism |
| Equal access to courts and lawyers |
Affordable and appropriate access to legal services |
| Program culture |
Centrifugal |
Centripetal |
| Collective |
Atomistic |
| |
Contractual |
| Emphasises long-term government, legal aid agency and legal profession relationships |
Emphasises price and outcomes in funder/supplier transactions |
| Provincial/State centric |
Funder/purchaser centric |
| Multi-focus policies (funding, expenditure, service delivery) |
Bifurcated policies (defining expenditure goals and targets/delivery legal aid services) |
| Legal profession/lawyers at gatekeepers |
Economists/civil service professionals/managers as gatekeepers |
| Features |
Mutual interest model |
Purchaser-supplier model |
| Advantages |
Demonstrated track record historically |
Demonstrated record in current comparable national public policy projects |
| Expression of international post-war courts-legal profession-lawyers' services approach (i.e. the "first wave" of the access-to-justice approach) |
Expression of international post-modern/new modern phase public management approach |
| |
Brings legal aid management into line with current trends in the welfare state |
| Mobilises socio-legal institution of legal aid |
Mobilises legal institution of contract |
| Compatible with goals of social welfare capitalism |
Compatible with goals of market capitalism |
| Inter-active, national, macroconsultative system oriented, centrifugal public policy project |
Inter-active, national, micro-oconsultative centripetal public policy project |
| Shared responsibility for policymaking, resource allocation, outcome agendas and service delivery |
Responsibility divided between funders (policy making, resource allocation & outcome agendas) and providers (service delivery) |
| De-centralises and shifts costs of administering federal legal expenditure |
Tendency to centralise and focus costs of administering federal legal aid expenditure |
| |
Minimises tension between multiple and conflicting agency roles |
| |
Assists in clarifying agency needs (via contract specification and negotiation processes) and increasing competition |
| |
Increased leverage of funding/policy agency (purchaser) over outputs |
| |
Enables funders to satisfy increasing requirements of Departments of Finance to demonstrate effectiveness and efficiency in legal aid expenditure |
| |
Likely to improve financial accountability and management |
| Risk spreading |
Risk nodulation |
| Encourages policy, eligibility and service menu diversity |
Maximises opportunities for policy, eligibility and service menu diversity/flexibility |
| |
Target policy outcomes to meet identified needs for service delivery |
| Tends to integrate national schemes with local provincial/State lawyer elites |
Creates fresh opportunities to diversify interest group base in legal aid projects |
| Promotes self-reliant, autonomous, locally street-smart provincial/State legal aid providers |
Increases management autonomy of service providers |
| |
Creates new opportunities to bridge build between legal aid programs with other social welfare and justice system projects |
| Emphasises quality/equity in participant partner relationships |
Emphasises efficient, effective, outcome oriented resource allocation |
| Provides macro-institutional framework to mediate partner/interest group differences |
Provides micro-institutional frameworks (i.e., bargaining, negotiation, contract, and contract management) to mediate funder/purchaser and provider/supplier differences |
| Mobilises legal professional social service/social justice ideals |
Creates opportunities to rejuvenate support base amongst practising lawyers (as governments/consumer re-re-renegotiate 20th century legal professionalism) |
| Mobilises/engages skills, know-how and social capital of the legal profession |
Mobilises/engages skills and know-how of practising lawyers |
| |
Reduces opportunities for supplier capture |
| Significant degree of compatibility with traditional work models in professional occupations |
Potential to mobilise skills and know-how of non-lawyer legal services providers |
| |
Potential to mobilise purchaser/ supplier experiences in other public sector agencies |
| Compatible with traditional work practices of legal profession (i.e. lawyer defined competence, quality, cost and scope of service delivery) |
Creates opportunities to reconstruct lawyer work practices in legal aid work |
| |
Enables funding/policy agencies to create or intervene in occupational markets |
| Features |
Mutual interest model |
Purchaser-supplier model |
| Disadvantage |
Efficiency and effectiveness contestable |
Conversion to a purchasersupplier model inevitably disrupts relationships of long standing (short or long-term) |
| Mismatch between reporting/outcome criteria and Departments of Finance program management criteria |
Possibly associated with trend towards reduced central expenditure on legal aid programs |
| Cost-benefit of federal expenditure on legal aid may be problematic |
Risks federal funders losing national perspective (and concentrating on efficiently targeting legal aid in federal matters) |
| Effective monitoring of federal expenditure can be problematic |
Risks federal governments/ legal aid funders/policy makers retaining insufficient incentives to collect comprehensive national data |
| Lack of central awareness/ sufficient knowledge of local markets for legal aid services, peculiarities of regional/local legal cultures etc. |
Risks providers' pursuing shortterm savings/ benefits at the cost of sustainable, win/win relationships with suppliers (e.g., provincial/State agencies, practising lawyers, NFPs etc.) |
| Diminished resonance of socio-legal institution of legal aid in market welfare state |
Demands new investment in monitoring technologies, research, needs management and contract management |
| Less compatible with goals of market capitalist states (e.g., de-regulation, reforms to markets for legal services) |
Risks contract/separating funding/policy and service delivery functions being seen as one-stop solution to problems of funding/managing complex, multi-relationship and dynamic legal aid projects |
| Not necessarily attuned to current visions of state/legal profession relationship of practising lawyer opinion leaders |
Risks uncompensated costshifting to provincial/State/ legal profession suppliers of costs of administering/ accounting for expenditure on federal legal aid priorities |
| Risks collective/partnership culture producing lowest common denominator or majority interest (i.e. favouring provincial/ State legal aid provider) solutions |
Introduction of divide between federal and provincial/State legal aid matters introduces artificial divide, out-of-step with emergence of national economies and globallysensitive local/regional communities |
| Political voice of provincial/ State legal aid agencies possibly disproportionate to funding quid pro quo |
Introduction of divide between federal and provincial/State legal aid matters risks prejudicing clients with mixed/ overlapping/fused legal problems and cases |
| Shared responsibility for policy, resource allocation and service delivery can lead to gaps in accountability |
Potential to damage desirable/productive aspects of legal professional work practices |
| Partnership approach not necessarily attuned to linked-up, seamless, integrated approach of access-to justice policies |
Over-regulation/reporting and excessive controls/ restrictions on legal professional work risks alienating otherwise empathetic and effective practising lawyers willing and in practice cohorts for which legal aid work is otherwise financially viable |
| Savings in cost of federal administration may be at the price of non-optimum match between policy and service delivery outcomes and responding to needs |
|
| Problems in collecting comprehensive, reliable cost, services delivery and outcome data |
|
| Semi-autonomy of provincial/State legal aid agencies may produce over emphasis on regional/local interests at cost of national and federal interests and meeting client needs |
|
| Institutional design/cultures creates potential for capture by non-federal interests |
|
| Imbrication of socio-legal institution of legal aid as institutional/cultural/ ideological template protects/projects interests of the legal profession and practising lawyers |
|
| Reinforces professionalism (at costs of efficiency/ effectiveness, competition and consumer interests) |
|
| Tends to protect potentially negative features of work practices of the legal profession (e.g., how legal work is performed, at what cost, and in what bundles) |
|
| Reliance on mobilising the legal profession promotes opportunities for capture of centrally-funded legal aid projects |
|
| Exclusive aspects of the socio-legal institution of legal aid (eg, inadequate voice for social welfare and consumer groups) Institutionally/ culturally less willing/able to respond to new market needs in a timely fashion |
|
| Decentralised policymaking/ expenditure may lead to lack of uniformity in eligibility for federallyfunded legal aid |
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