The short answer
A contribution is where legal aid pays for your case but you pay part of it yourself. Mediation legal aid has never been contributory, so if you qualify for that, you pay nothing. For solicitor funding the position is genuinely unsettled: the contribution rules were removed from the regulations in June 2025 as a temporary measure and have not been reinstated, but the Legal Aid Agency’s current eligibility card still sets out the bands.
Key points
- Mediation legal aid: no contribution, ever. That part is settled and certain.
- For solicitor funding, the law and the official keycard currently disagree.
- The rules were removed on 27 June 2025 as a temporary measure after the Legal Aid Agency cyber attack.
- No end date was given, and nothing has reinstated them.
- Ask your provider what applies on the day you apply. We are not going to publish a figure.
Important information
This page deliberately does not give you a contribution figure.
The regulations that set contributions were removed with effect from 27 June 2025, described at the time as a temporary measure that would apply until it was no longer required. No end date was given, and no instrument has since restored them.
But the Legal Aid Agency’s own eligibility keycard, current from 6 April 2026, still prints the contribution bands.
Publishing a figure from either source risks telling you that you owe money you do not, or that you owe nothing when you do. Neither is acceptable on a page about your money. Ask the provider handling your application what applies to you on the day. They deal with this daily.
Mediation: the part that is certain
Controlled work and family mediation are what the rules call non-contributory forms of civil legal services. That is structural, not temporary. Contributions have never applied to mediation, and the provisions that existed only ever applied to legal representation, family help (higher) and a narrow further category.
So if you are financially eligible for mediation legal aid, you are not asked for a contribution, you do not receive a bill from the mediator, and nothing is recovered from you afterwards.
This one is free
Mediation legal aid is not a loan
The statutory charge is how the government gets its money back out of what you keep at the end of a funded case. It is the reason legal aid for a solicitor can feel like a loan rather than a gift.
It does not apply to family mediation. Mediation is excluded outright. It is also, unlike legal help, not one of the services that gets pulled back into the charge if you later need a solicitor. So the cost of your mediation is never recovered from you, whatever happens next.
One qualification. If you use Help with Family Mediation and then go on to full representation on the same dispute, the cost of that legal advice can be added to the charge. The mediation itself still cannot.
Source: Civil Legal Aid (Statutory Charge) Regulations 2013, regulation 4. Family mediation is excluded by regulation 4(1)(d) and is not listed in the regulation 4(2) claw-back. Checked 5 August 2026.
What a contribution was, when it applied
Two kinds. An income contribution, paid monthly for the life of the case, where disposable income was above a threshold. And a capital contribution, a lump sum where disposable capital was above a threshold but still inside the eligibility limit.
A contribution is not the same as the statutory charge, and the two get confused. A contribution is paid as the case runs. The statutory charge is recovered at the end, out of what you keep. The charge is very much still in force.
What to ask
When a firm assesses you, ask directly:
- Will I have to pay a contribution, and if so how much and how often?
- Is that in addition to the statutory charge at the end?
- What happens to my contribution if the case settles early?
Get the answer in writing. A firm that cannot answer clearly is one to compare against another.