For civil cases, except for public law cases which are all assigned out and Insolvency and seaman's wages claims which are all handled in-house, regard will be had to the following factors in considering whether a case should be assigned out:
| (a)
|
whether parties to proceedings are both legally aided, if so, both parties or at least one of them must be represented by a private practitioner in accordance with Section 12 of the Legal Aid Ordinance; |
| (b)
|
whether a conflict of interest arises or is likely to arise, e.g. an action against the Legal Aid Department; |
| (c) |
whether the aided person was already represented by a private practitioner before the grant of legal aid; |
| (d) |
whether the case is connected to other cases which have been assigned out if so, the case will usually be assigned to the same private practitioner; and |
| (e) |
whether the capacity and workload of the Litigation Division permits new cases to be taken up. |
For criminal cases, all District Court trial cases are assigned out. The Department will take into account the following factors in determining if a Court of First Instance or appeal case should be assigned out:
| (a)
|
whether the capacity and workload of the Criminal Litigation Section permits new cases to be taken up; |
| (b)
|
whether the aided person was already represented by a private practitioner before the grant of legal aid; and |
| (c) |
whether the case involves multi-defendants where a conflict of interest arises or likely to arise that necessitates separate representation. |
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