Lawyers have called on the prime minister to review civil legal aid eligibility urgently amid claims that recent cuts have created a crisis in access to justice.

In an open letter to Theresa May, senior figures in the Young Legal Aid Lawyers organisation and the Legal Action Group claim that there has been a “huge reduction” in the number of legal aid cases funded since 2013.

The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (Laspo) removed advice on housing, debt, welfare benefits and private family law from the scope of legal aid.

According to Oliver Carter, a trainee solicitor at Irwin Mitchell, a national law firm, and Rachel Francis, a barrister at 1 Pump Court in the Temple – the joint chairmen of the group – “this has resulted in hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people being denied meaningful access to justice”. The two lawyers point out in the letter that “the government has repeatedly said it will carry out a review to assess the full impact of the reforms and cuts to legal aid introduced by Laspo after three years”.

They call on May and Liz Truss, the new justice secretary, “to fulfil the commitment to review Laspo at the earliest opportunity. The review must fairly and objectively assess the impact of legal aid cuts on access to justice. We believe it is vital for the government to ensure that nobody is denied access to justice based on their ability to pay.”

According to Steve Hynes, director of the Legal Action Group, “the number of cases in both criminal and civil legal aid continues to fall. The MoJ are spending far less than they budgeted for.”

Hynes claimed that the “budget underspend means the new justice secretary has room to innovate”.

An insurance claim of more than £3.2 million must be paid out even though a ship’s crew lied about the damage caused to a merchant vessel, the UK’s highest court has found.

In a judgment that will send shock waves through the maritime industry, the Supreme Court ruled by a majority of four to one that Versloot Dredging, the owner of a tanker called the DC Merwestone, are entitled to the claim, despite its crew’s attempts to cover up its negligence. In 2010 the tanker was struck by a flood in its engine room, which was irreparably damaged after the crew failed to close a sea inlet valve in the emergency fire pumps. The insurers’ solicitors were told that the crew maintained that the alarm could not be investigated in time because the ship was rolling in heavy weather.

While the Supreme Court justices acknowledged that the crew had lied about the storm conditions, they concluded that it was “immaterial to the insured’s right to recover”.

James Dalton, director of general insurance policy at the Association of British Insurers, said that the decision risked pushing up the cost of insurance and prolonging the payout process for honest customers.

Jim Cashman, a partner at Holman Fenwick Willan, the law firm representing Versloot Dredging, said: “The Supreme Court recognised the difference between an assured who uses fraud in an attempt to gain something to which he is not entitled, and one who makes a reckless statement but stands to gain nothing beyond what he is legally due.”

Solicitors’ leaders increased pressure on ministers to amend the proposed so-called snooper’s charter after Europe’s top judges were advised that it would breach EU law.

The Law Society, which has intervened in a challenge to the Investigatory Powers Bill at the European Court of Justice, welcomed an opinion from the advocate-general that the legislation would be “incompatible with EU law".

The society, which represents some 130,000 practising solicitors in England and Wales, told the court that if implemented unamended the legislation would damage legal professional privilege, which protects communication between solicitors and clients. Robert Bourns, the society’s recently installed president, said that the advocate-general’s opinion “reflects our own, [which is] that data should only be retained if there are strict measures in place to protect fundamental rights, including the right to professional privilege”.

Lawyers specialising in technology and privacy issues forecast that regardless of the advocate-general’s opinion, the legislation could face a bumpy road. "The Bill extends mandatory data retention into site-level browsing histories, the Bill’s so-called internet connection records,” explained Graham Smith, a partner at Bird & Bird, a London law firm.

“The government acknowledges that these are more intrusive than ordinary communications data. This expansion may provide new grounds of challenge, whatever the decision of the [European] court. … Those could include not only privacy and data protection issues, but also intrusion into freedom of expression."

The advocate-general’s opinion is only advisory and the court could take a different view, although it usually follows advice. The challenge was originally brought jointly by two MPs, Tom Watson, Labour’s deputy leader, and the Conservative David Davis, who has now withdrawn after his appointment to the cabinet as the secretary of state for exiting the EU.

Turkey must “refrain from arbitrary arrests and detentions of judges and respect fair trials”, one of the UK’s leading human rights lawyers said yesterday as concerns mounted over the Erdogan regime’s reaction to last weekend’s failed coup.

The plea came as international law firms began weighing up whether it was worth maintaining a presence in the increasingly unstable jurisdiction.

Baroness Kennedy of the Shaws, QC, said: “At a time of political instability it is essential that the institutions that safeguard human rights and democracy are upheld. Protecting the independence and impartiality of the judiciary is crucial to ensuring the protection of Turkish citizens.”

Speaking in her role as co-chairwoman of the Human Rights Institute of the International Bar Association, the Doughty Street Chambers silk called on the Turkish government to uphold basic principles of the rule of law. Her co-chairman, Hans Corell, criticised the “sudden dismissal” of up to 2,500 judges in the jurisdiction after they were alleged to have supported the thwarted military coup.

“This sort of blanket dismissal is in direct conflict with Turkey’s constitutional protection for judges’ security of tenure and against unfair dismissal,” Corell said. “It also disregards international legal standards, such as the UN basic principles on the independence of the judiciary, which provide that all decisions related to judicial suspension and dismissal should be the result of a fair hearing and be subject to an independent review.”

As the ramifications of the political turbulence in Turkey became clearer, a senior City of London lawyer said that international firms should reconsider their presence in the jurisdictions.

Speaking to the American Lawyer magazine, Olof Clausson, a capital markets partner at the London office of Latham & Watkins, a US firm: said: “Fee levels have already been at a level where it is difficult for international quality law firms to justify deploying assets in Turkey, and a further deterioration in the market by political instability or otherwise is going to make it even more difficult.”

A French lawyer who claimed to have represented the Bastille Day killer Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel is understood to have attempted to kill himself after being unmasked as an alleged fraud, writes David Brown in Nice.

Corentin Delobel was quoted around the world describing how the man he had defended during a road rage trial in March had shown no sign of Islamic radicalisation. The lawyer also said that his client, who went on to kill 84 people and injure more than 300 last week during an attack with a lorry in Nice, showed no signs of psychiatric troubles.

Delobel was set to appear before a disciplinary hearing of the Bar of Nice yesterday morning. Jacques Randon, president of the Bar association, told Nice Matin newspaper that it appeared Delobel was in hospital after an attempted suicide.

He said that the “fragile” lawyer had never represented Bouhlel. Randon said the “serious” allegations concerned “several interviews [the lawyer] gave in a dramatic context”.

Myriam Bellazouz, 29, a Nice-based lawyer, was killed in the attack along with her mother. Randon told fellow lawyers who attended a memorial event: “I will remember her talent, her passion, her smile and her dedication to the Bar.”

In this week’s Times Law

• Court reform is going ahead without delay, says Lord Justice Fulford
  
• Why solicitor brand deserves recognition
  
• Children arbitration scheme offers solutions
  
• Pain in Spain – holiday homeowners hit
  
• Fraud busters signal compromise
  
• Brexit: How will the rest of the EU fare?
  
• Lawyer of the week: Shami Chakrabarti
  
• Edward Fennell’s law diary: May’s legal rout
  
• Gary Slapper’s weird cases: this money needs laundering
  
• Law Reports: Excessive delay in criminal proceedings

Elsewhere …

• Facebook turns to Baker & McKenzie to fight US tax probe -- Legal Week
  
• Calls for leasehold reform -- Law Gazette
  
• Lawyer-matching service aims to recruit 20,000 clients -- Legal Futures