Guidance

Legal Aid Agency cyber-security incident

A dedicated space with the latest updates, contingency measures and processes following a cyber-attack on the Legal Aid Agency’s online digital services.

From:
Ministry of Justice and Legal Aid Agency
Published
22 May 2025

To ensure that legal aid providers have the latest position with respect to legal aid applications and billing contingencies, and that affected parties can access the latest developments on the incident, we have created a dedicated space with contingencies and useful resources.

If you are a legal aid provider and have any concerns about any of the contingencies in place, and which are not answered on this page, please contact your LAA Contract Manager for queries about your specific circumstances. For other incident related queries not covered on this page, you can contact our Customer Services Team on 0300 200 20 20. Opening hours are 9am-5pm Monday-Friday.

If you are, or have been, a recipient of legal aid and are concerned that   you might be affected by this incident, and cannot find the information you need on this page, please contact our Customer Services Team on 0300 200 20 20. Opening hours are 9am-5pm Monday-Friday. Alternatively, email the Chief Executive’s Correspondence and Parliamentary Engagement Team at corporatecorrespondenceteam@justice.gov.uk. 

Non-incident related queries, including case specific queries, should continue to be directed to contactcivil@justice.gov.uk

Contingency measures

Civil applications

For civil applications, where a provider cannot utilise delegated functions and has an imminent court hearing they should contact the LAA customer services team on 0300 200 2020. If a provider needs to submit an urgent amendment for a High Cost Family case, please contact the Customer Services Team who will refer the matter over to the High Cost Family team for urgent consideration. For Non-High Cost Family cases, follow the same process where the item will be referred to the Civil Applications team for urgent consideration.

Crime applications

Whilst the Portal is unavailable providers will be unable to gain a date stamp for applications. When the Portal becomes available providers will be invited to complete applications as normal and indicate in the ‘Further Information’ section that they were unable to submit their application and the date that they would have submitted it but for the outage. LAA caseworkers will backdate representation orders to the requested date where applicable.

Note that during this contingency only, we will backdate all applications (including indictable only) to the date that they would have been submitted had the portal been available.  Once Crime Apply becomes available, we will revert to the existing backdating arrangements as set out in CLAM.

Where providers have not yet submitted their April CWA submissions (due by 20 May), they should email the Reconciliation team reconciliation@justice.gov.uk with their total monthly submission value for their April submission by 20 May. This should be a global amount for each submission which the provider normally makes on CWA. When CWA is available, the submissions should then also be submitted via the system, to allow them to be reconciled.

CRM4

Prior authority applications (CRM4s) cannot currently be submitted on the portal.

  • Urgent CRM4 applications can be sent via email to CRM4contingency@justice.gov.uk.
  • Please complete the PDF version of the CRM4.   Please note that this is an old version of the CRM4, but the required information is the same. The CRM4 should be submitted along with the usual documentation, including the quote from the expert. A decision will be provided to you via email.

If you experience any difficulties with this process, please contact magsbilling@justice.gov.uk. Please also see the attached guidance on editing a PDF. CRM4 appeals can be submitted in the usual way to CRM4appeal@justice.gov.uk.

CRM5

  • Please complete the PDF version of the Application for Extension of Upper Limit form (CRM5). Due to changes in the CRM5 process over the years, the most recent PDF is from 2009. Since then, there have been some changes in terminology and scope.
  • Please ignore any references to Prison Law or parole hearings.
  • Wherever it reads CDS1/2/3/5, this is the old terminology for CRM1/2/3/5.
  • Please include a breakdown of hours and hourly rates in the box on page 3.
  • Please complete all other sections as usual.
  • If you are requesting a disbursement, please attach a copy of the quote to your email. If there is any other information you would like to submit, please also attach it to your email.
  • Please send a completed copy of this form to CRM5applications@justice.gov.uk.

If you experience any difficulties with this process, please contact CRM5applications@justice.gov.uk. Please also see the attached guidance on editing a PDF.

CRM5 appeals can be submitted as usual to CRM5appeal@justice.gov.uk

CRM7

  • Please submit non-standard Magistrates’ claims (CRM7s) via paper.
  • Please send your CRM7 and file of papers to:

Legal Aid Agency
3rd Floor, B3.20
1 Unity Square
Queensbridge Road
Nottingham
NG2 1AW
DX 10035 Nottingham

CRM 18As

There is no change to the submission of CRM18 claims.

  • Submit CRM18 (Police Station Escape Fee) claims to the Magistrates’ Billing Team in Nottingham.

Email Crime.Exceptional@Justice.gov.uk

Alternatively, you can send by post or DX:

Legal Aid Agency
 3rd Floor, B3.20
 1 Unity Square
 Queensbridge Road
 Nottingham
 NG2 1AW
 DX 10035 Nottingham

CRM18s cannot be accepted via Secure File Exchange.

All of the necessary forms can be found at https://legalaidlearning.justice.gov.uk/contingency-forms/

Systems updates

The LAA’s online services were taken offline on Friday 16 May, and will remain offline until further notice. We apologise for any inconvenience caused by the ongoing works.

Further resources

Updates to this page

Published 22 May 2025

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