Legal aid lawyers in a broad sense mainly refer to social lawyers assigned by legal aid centers to handle cases.
I think you should ask the latter, which is a full-time legal aid lawyer like me.
Legal aid lawyers are not written into the lawyer law, so this is also a place that outsiders don't understand (embarrassed expression).
As far as Hebei province is concerned, the main requirements of full-time lawyers for legal aid are: working in the judicial bureau for more than one year and passing the judicial examination.
Let me answer the question directly.
1. Is it a real lawyer?
Count. First of all, like ordinary lawyers, you need to pass the judicial examination (now called the law examination); Secondly, in the professional process, lawyers and ordinary social lawyers enjoy the same litigation rights and perform the same litigation obligations.
What is the difference? Just can't accept money, it serves specific economic difficulties (the specific scope is large, and it varies from place to place, so I won't say it)
2. Is there a huge gap in business capabilities?
Not necessarily. Specifically:
Legal aid mainly focuses on the following areas: civil marriage and family, labor disputes, personal injury; Crime-juvenile delinquency.
The publicity degree of legal aid varies from place to place, and the staffing is also different.
Some county legal aid centers have only one lawyer, and the administration and business are concentrated on one person, and most of the time and energy are spent on administrative affairs (receiving aid applications, assigning lawyers, and managing daily work).
I have seen some county and district aid lawyers not handle a case for a whole year, which makes social lawyers starve to death, but it doesn't matter if legal aid lawyers have financial support.
Some counties and districts have strong aid lawyers, and the publicity is also in place, and even professional teams have been formed. The number of cases they handle is no less than that of social lawyers, and their professional ability even far exceeds that of ordinary social lawyers in familiar professional fields (such as labor disputes).
As far as our center is concerned, there are two aid lawyers and four or five legal aid workers (that is, they have certain legal professional ability but have not passed the legal examination and can handle civil cases). We have very successful cases in labor dispute cases and personal injury cases, and we think we are no worse than ordinary social lawyers.
But nowadays, we should pay more attention to management rather than handling cases. I wonder if our business level will deteriorate in the future. ...