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Obiter
All practice areas Criminal Defence

Legal aid crime billing, automated from police station to Crown Court.

Criminal defence is high-volume, high-pressure, and legally aided. Obiter automates the billing cycle from police station attendance to Crown Court conclusion — so you recover every pound you've earned.

The Criminal Defence challenge

No other area of law combines the administrative complexity of legal aid billing with the urgency of round-the-clock client demand. Crime departments carry a uniquely heavy administrative burden — and the LAA's billing rules leave no room for error.

Crime Lower and Crime Higher billing codes are granular and complex

CCMS claim submission is time-consuming and rejection-prone

Police station duty rotas are difficult to manage at scale

Court hearings across multiple courts are hard to coordinate

Fixed fee escapes require precise activity tracking

How Obiter helps Criminal Defence solicitors

Purpose-built tooling for every stage of the criminal defence workflow — from the duty solicitor's first attendance to the final CCMS claim.

Crime Lower Billing

Automatic unit-based billing for police station advice, duty solicitor work, and magistrates court proceedings — all billing codes pre-loaded.

Crime Higher Billing

Crown Court billing with graduated fees, LGFS pages of prosecution evidence calculations, and refresher fee tracking.

CCMS Claim Automation

Claims built from AI-filed actions and submitted to CCMS with one click — including supporting documentation.

Police Station Duty Rota

Manage duty solicitor rotas, on-call scheduling, and police station attendance records across the firm.

Hearing Management

Track pre-trial hearings, plea and trial preparation hearings, trials, and sentencing dates across multiple courts and fee earners.

Fixed Fee Escape Tracking

Automatically flag matters where actual work is approaching the fixed fee escape threshold — so you claim the correct representation order.

Built for CCMS

Claims assembled from recorded case actions

Obiter builds CCMS claims from AI-recorded case actions, cross-checks codes before submission, and attaches supporting documents automatically — targeting the manual errors that trigger LAA rejections.

Complete platform

Built on the complete Obiter platform

The Criminal Defence engine sits on top of the full Obiter core — so your department gets specialist crime tooling alongside everything else a modern practice needs.

  • AI-powered email triage and client communication
  • Automatic time recording from every action taken
  • AML identity verification and ongoing monitoring
  • Secure client portal with document sharing
  • Full audit log and SRA compliance reporting
  • Multi-user, multi-branch, role-based access control
Explore all platform features

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