The legal aid duty scheme does not have a scales problem: it has a model problem

The Order submitting the update of legal aid duty scales to public hearing, which we covered this week in Legal aid duty: public hearing to update the scales, is good news with a trap: if the debate shrinks to which percentage to raise each concept, we will have lost another decade.

The diagnosis everyone shares

The duty scheme sustains the fundamental right to legal assistance for those who cannot pay for it, and it does so with a remuneration model the profession has been describing for years with the same words: outdated scales, services without a specific module, hard-to-justify territorial differences and a profession that covers the service out of deontology rather than economic sense. The Free Legal Aid Regulation, approved by Royal Decree 141/2021, attempted a first structural correction with service modules, and Royal Decree 824/2026 has added new modules this year, as we covered in Legal aid duty: the new modules of RD 824/2026.

Why tweaks are not enough

Updating a scale admits it was frozen; not changing the model guarantees it will be frozen again. Three design elements explain the problem better than any figure:

1. The price is set by the list, not by the work. The same proceeding earns the same on a quiet Monday shift as on a complicated holiday one, regardless of the time actually required.
2. The update depends on the political will of each moment. Without an automatic review mechanism (index, periodicity, evaluation), every update arrives late by construction.
3. VAT and the costs of practice are discounted from an already tight scale, so the net remuneration sits well below the market price of the same service.

What a deep reform should include

The profession has had proposals on the table for years: remuneration per hour effectively dedicated with ceilings per service, automatic annual review referenced to a public index, complete modules for the telematic services that are now ordinary practice, and transparency in administrations' payment times. The public hearing is the regulatory channel to convey them. It would be a lost opportunity if the submissions limited themselves to discussing the percentage.

What is at stake in this hearing

Participation in the public hearing is not a symbolic procedure: it is the channel for bars, professional associations and duty lawyers to contribute data on real costs, dedication times and territorial comparisons. The better documented the evidence, the harder it will be to close the reform with a cosmetic update. Bars with cost studies already prepared start with an advantage; firms with active duty work would do well to send their numbers now.

The 2021 precedent shows the path and its limits

The 2021 reform proved the system can be modernised: service modules introduced a logic of payment for work actually done instead of the old closed list. But it also proved that good architecture with low prices is still a low price. The lesson for 2026 is that the technical discussion about modules cannot be separated from the budgetary discussion about how much the defence of those who cannot pay is worth.

The quality of defence is also paid for

Behind the remuneration model lies a fundamental right: if the duty scheme is systematically remunerated below the reasonable cost of the service, the system selects against dedication and specialisation. We already warned in Legal aid duty when the MASC ends without agreement: free justice cannot permanently rest on the profession's generosity.

The public hearing is a real window. Let it not close with a tweak.