Legal News

Disappointed due to the repeated freezing of criminal fees by the successive governments including the current government, the head of the Criminal Bar Association is to raise the spectre of strike action by the criminal barristers across England and Wales in protest at cuts in fees and legal aid reform.
In a belligerent speech, Max Hill QC, was to accuse politicians of "duplicity" signalling a significant souring of the relationship between the legal community and the coalition government.
He would assert that the popular perception of "fat cat" lawyers wallowing in claret was inaccurate, and that though the lawyers were Rumpole's successors they still had to spend their days worrying about paying the mortgage; and worrying about how to afford a pension.
He would declare that all should fight and have the option of strike open to demand a better treatment. No more cuts, he is to say, either for the defence or the prosecution. He would say that the government should not be allowed to say that the lawyers must take their share of future cuts demanded by the wide ranging spending review.
He would say that only the criminal bar had suffered cuts by stagnation in its fees for 15 years before the spending review. The public sector wages were not put on hold since the mid-nineties he is to question. Any hostile reaction to the argument is met with a hostile reaction, which would be to strike he will say.
Any decision to strike is only likely to taken following further conversations with all the 3,500 members of the Criminal Bar Association in England and Wales.
The decision to slice £350m out of the Ministry of Justice's annual civil legal aid budget has further contributed to the mood of dismay at the bar Hill would say. He will say the Legal Aid (Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders) Act "would leave many with no recourse to the law when things go badly wrong, with necessary litigation sacrificed on the altar of cost.
Hill alleges that politicians, who express confidence that the bar would continue to play its vital role in the criminal justice system, are in fact preparing to settle for cheap partial justice, and then telling the public that it was the greedy lawyers who were to be blamed.
He would say that in the face of such duplicity, the role reversal is complete. The criminal bar upholds the public interest in access to justice and the maintenance of a proper criminal justice system, whilst it is the government who are obsessed by money.
Lawyers are the latest professional group to oppose cuts in funding. Last week more than 30,000 police officers marched through London protesting about the impact of government policies on their pay, pensions and working conditions.
Hill's speech to the CBA also coincides with a decision by the Solicitors Regulation Authority to scrap the minimum wage for trainee solicitors from 2014. The national minimum wage of £6.08 per hour will be the only requirement after that date.
Hill argued that the grievances were widely felt within the Bar. A survey of more than 1,600 CBA members found that 89% were both "prepared to take direct lawful action" and did not think the current level of fees for aided work was fair enough remuneration. More than 80% had suffered from delays in payments by the Legal Services Commission.
Barristers' "greatest weakness" in the past, he suggests, had been the "reluctance to use the heavy weaponry namely stopping the courts.
A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said striking was never the answer to resolving complaints. The changes made to legal aid were necessary and barristers were still paid well for legal aid cases.