Legally assisted or LIP?

Mohammadi v Shellpoint Trustees Ltd and another [2009] EWHC 1098 (Ch); SJ 9 June p31

Was the claimant a ‘legally assisted party’ within the meaning of s17 of The Legal Aid Act 1988 or was she a litigant in person? If she was the former, she would get substantial protection from liability to pay her opponent’s costs. In protracted litigation over a period of 12 years the claimant had obtained public funding by means of several overlapping legal aid certificates, during which time she had instructed several solicitors. With each change of solicitors, a legal aid certificate was discharged and then reinstated. During the intervening periods she was without legal representation. Held: It could not be right that the other litigants, once informed that the previously legally assisted person had ceased to be in receipt of legal advice and representation, were none the less kept in suspense until the outcome of any investigation as to their opponent’s motivation, or the outcome of any subsequent application to reinstate the legal aid certificate in question. When a legally assisted person’s solicitors have ceased to act without another firm being retained under a legal aid certificate, and that fact has been communicated to the opposing party, then from the moment of that communication the litigant ceases to be a legally assisted person even though she was actively seeking to reinstate the provision to her of legal advice, assistance and representation. This was the plain meaning of s2(11) of the Legal Aid Act 1988. She was not therefore protected from adverse costs orders being enforced in respect of those periods.