sums in unpaid Legal Aid bills.

Fed-up attorney Mr. Phil Perinchief yesterday landed the first blow -- hitting the Finance Ministry with a $41,000 writ.

Also named in the suit are Legal Aid Committee chairman Puisne Judge the Hon.

Justice Ground and Attorney General Mr. Elliott Mottley.

"The situation has become totally reprehensible, unbearable and intolerable,'' fumed Mr. Perinchief, who has demanded an overhaul of a system said to be nearing breakdown.

He added: "It's really the equivalent of pushing cooked noodles up the road with your nose. The system is a limping affair.'' Another Legal Aid writ is waiting in the wings -- from Mr. Timothy Marshall who alleges he is owed $107,000 in arrears stretching back several years.

Mr. Marshall said new Social Services Minister the Hon. Harry Soares had promised to review the system.

"I am basically counting on the Minister to do something about the problem, and I've withheld my writ in the meantime. The problem with the system has been ongoing for far too long.'' Yesterday, Mr. Justice Ground accepted there were delays with paying lawyers Legal Aid bills.

This was down to the sheer volume of Legal Aid work nowadays, and the paperwork involved, he said.

"Until recently we've had one secretary to do it, but we now have two on a temporary basis.

"It is a struggle to deal with administrative work. The whole thing has been reviewed by Management Services who recommended the employment of two full-time lawyers to manage the system.

"If that is put in place it will clear the administrative difficulties we labour under.

"It's something I would welcome. It would speed up the administration system, and would allow us to maintain far tighter control of our expenditure.'' The Legal Aid system -- funded by Government -- was designed to pay lawyers to represent clients unable to pay high legal fees.

But, said Mr. Justice Ground, administrative problems made it impossible to check people entitled to Legal Aid.

"We don't have the system to check people. We do spot checks, but we need more staff.'' Mr. Justice Ground said the Committee was made up of himself, two lawyers appointed by the Bar Council, an accountant and a Social Services representative.

On the Perinchief writ, Mr. Justice Ground said the Legal Aid Committee assessed lawyers' bills for "fairness and reasonableness'', before they were sent to the Accountant General for payment.

"We disallow items which we consider unnecessary and over the years Mr.

Perinchief's bills have been taxed down.

"The committee often finds Mr. Perinchief's bills are larger than we would have thought appropriate.'' Mr. Perinchief, from Perinchief & Associates, told The Royal Gazette he had lodged a complaint about Legal Aid some three years ago.

His lawsuit follows months of correspondence and telephone calls, and a meeting with Mr. Justice Ground.

"Quite frankly as presently constituted the system will not work. In my view too little is being done far too late, and there is a seeming nonchalant attitude to establishing justice for those who can ill afford it financially,'' he said.

Mr. Perinchief said the Legal Aid Committee was made up of volunteer lawyers who were not as committed to the system as full-time employees would be.

"As a consequence weeks go by when nothing is accomplished. This is especially so during vacation periods.

"The feeling among some clients is that Government doesn't really care that they get quality legal representation or indeed any at all as they are put through a humiliating means test to establish whether or not they are eligible for services that are long coming.

"Weeks go by when no financial matters are dealt with at all with the result many lawyers have become disenchanted with the system and simply refuse to do any Legal Aid, which accordingly leaves the standard and quality of the services both limited and wanting.'' Mr. Perinchief said payment of lawyers' bills could be delayed from nine months to one year -- and in some cases even longer.

"This state of affairs, of course, wreaks havoc on small law firms who may rely 40 percent or more in their early stages on Legal Aid clients.

Courtroom showdown looms From Page 1 "Non-payment of Legal Aid billings could result in an early closure of many of these small firms.'' Mr. Perinchief also accused the Legal Aid Committee of making "inane requests'' as part of a delaying tactic in paying bills.

"This has the effect of there being larger calls on the new Legal Aid budget in the next financial period.'' Mr. Perinchief called on the Ministry of Finance to employ full-time Legal Aid Committee staff on a rotary basis to focus on "financial and non-financial/or administrative matters''.

He also argued for a non-judicial committee chairman.

"There is no logical reason to have a judge as a chairman for an administrative role.'' Mr. Perinchief said his lawsuit related to bills allegedly unpaid for three or four years. One of them stretched back to 1991, he claimed.

"The total amount in arrears comes to $41,000.'' He added his firm was allegedly owed another $21,000 for more recent Legal Aid work, though this was not included in the writ.

"I sit patiently while the committee handles this,'' he said.

Mr. Perinchief said some law firms relied heavily on Legal Aid resources, and were hit severely by delayed payments.

"My practice will have been opened five years in November and when we started we relied 35 to 40 percent on Legal Aid. Now our reliance is about 15 percent.

"The committee taxes bills down by as much as 50 percent without explanation or representation or right of audience by that law firm to either explain or defend those billings.'' Mr. Perinchief highlighted the role played by Legal Aid lawyers, and the contribution they made to society.

Their rates varied from $100 per hour to $110 per hour -- roughly a third of those of lawyers in private practice.

"There must be a wholesale revamping of the system and the Legal Aid act to make it more closely approximise the cost of Legal Aid services. Currently, it is an unworkable, unwieldy machine.'' Mr. Marshall, from Marshall & Co, said it was high time Government tackled the Legal Aid controversy.

"A lot of our files were submitted about three years ago. We had files going back to 1993.'' Mr. Marshall said he was banking on Mr. Soares to show more resolve than his predecessor the Hon. Quinton Edness in addressing the problem.

He added he had heard Government planned streamlining the system, and introducing an office of "public defenders'' similar to that in place in Canada and America.

The office would be headed by an experienced attorney.

Mr. Darcy Lord, lawyer and managing partner of Lord, Simmons and Warner, said: "As administrator of the firm I was concerned at the delay in receiving payments.

"It is not uncommon to have delays of over a year, and we've made representations. "I think the problem is with administration -- there is usually just one Legal Aid clerk. The whole administrative structure needs looking at because it is very close to complete breakdown.'' Yesterday, Mr. Justice Ground was unwilling to discuss details of the Perinchief writ.

But he sought to shoot down claims he had stated he would not pay bills predating his chairmanship of the Legal Aid Committee in July 1994.

"All I've said is that I will not review any taxation down of bills that took place before my chairmanship.'' "I've told Mr. Perinchief that where he has a particular problem with what we do he should address it and we will consider his explanation.

"At the end of day if the Committee doesn't think a billing is justified it reduces it to what it considers to be a fair level.

"Mr. Perinchief has refused to accept those reductions. While we regard the account closed, he said there is debt owing.'' He added: "The Committee believes it is under a public duty to protect public funds by taxing lawyers' bills in this way. We believe we would be derelict in our duty to approve whatever was billed.'' Mr. Justice Ground said his committee was stretched to the limit as never before by Legal Aid work.

Last year, there were 923 applications for Legal Aid of which 588 were granted and 335 refused.

This compares with 738 applications for the previous year; 549 were approved and 189 declined. And for the year, 1988-89, 220 applications were granted and 146 turned down.

"Over the years there has been a huge increase in applications and that means we have two and a half times the workload. The costs also rise,'' said Mr.

Justice Ground.

Mr. Justice Ground said the committee's expenditure in 1994-95 was $661,185, compared to $627,673 in the previous year.

Mr. Phil Perinchief