Criminal Barristers Refuse Returns

[raven]

That article is heart-wrenching. She's a talented writer; it'd be a sad loss to the legal profession but she could probably make a second career out of it.

It's infuriating that the Tories make themselves out to be the party of law and order and yet preside over a mess like this.

The way legal aid work is paid seems odd to me, reminds me of how piece work rates can be used to keep wages low. All seems a bit Victorian to be honest. Maybe the system needs overhauling, maybe legal aid lawyers should be paid an annual salary with overtime on top for stepping in to take cases over at the last minute. But that's probably far too modern an idea for this government.

Legal aid solicitors are (well unless they're partners I suppose). But not many legal aid barristers (or solicitors) really just do legal aid work. Admittedly for a lot of them it's probably in part because of how badly it pays, but it feels like it would be a fairly strange setup to have effectively 'employed' barristers do legal aid work full time and everyone else carry on doing self employed work as they are. As long as most barristers remain self employed, probably best to just actually pay legal aid work properly.

Eta in civil legal aid work you can claim a fee 'uplift' for certain things including the urgency of the work, can't remember how it works for criminal legal aid though.

I'm not quite understanding you there. Legal aid solicitors are paid a salary? Is a legal aid solcitor someone who just does legal aid work? And there's lawyers that do legal aid work but not full time, so they're supplementing their earnings with other legal work - which sounds like the only way to survive the system at the moment.

[discovolante]

Well, generally speaking, solicitors are employed by firms but barristers aren't (there are exceptions of course). Joanna Hardy is a barrister and most of this discussion has been about barristers. So paying them a salary would change the model of how barristers work quite significantly. Solicitors who work at firms that do legal aid work also often do work other than legal aid work too, but they are employed by the firm they work for so get a salary. And are probably likely to also do a fair bit of non-legal aid work because they may have fee targets that are more or less impossible to meet with legal aid work only (although don't start me on recovery of costs haha). Dunno if that clarifies at all...

[raven]

Thanks, yes, that somewhat clarifies.

Probably would help if I knew more about the legal system. I don't think most people do, which I suppose is how it's been chipped away at without most of us noticing.