CIVIL Court reformer Lord Woolf and government minister Jonathan Evans head the speakers' line-up for this year's Legal Aid Practitioners Group conference.

Legal Action Group director Roger Smith will join Woolf and Evans, minister at the LCD, at the event on 27 April.

The stated aim of the conference is to “help practitioners steer a path through the shifting sands of reform in legal aid and civil justice”.

Both the planned reform of legal aid and Lord Woolf's review of civil justice are likely to come under heavy scrutiny.

There will also be sessions on the new Criminal Cases Review Commission, mediation and the use of judicial review in community care.

Other speakers are Russell Wallman, head of the Law Society's professional policy unit, former Law Society president Charles Elly and judicial review expert Richard Gordon QC.

For more details about the conference, being held at The Scandic Hotel in Rotherhithe, call 0171 231 0599.