Spare a thought for those poor legal aid lawyers

The Tories ideal legal system for the poor is the benefit sanction system. An untrained employee on just above basic wage makes his judgement based on one sided evidence (often in the absence of the accused). He then decides the sentence (benefits withheld for how long) and carries out the sentence with no peer review. The benefit is withdrawn immediately often without informing the accused (who wasn’t present at the ‘trial’). The accused can appeal but it takes up to 3 months, during which they have no source of income so often can’t afford to eat or get the bus to the Job centre to appeal. The whole system is completely one sided and the sentences are far more serious than those a magistrate can impose. It sometimes ends with the accused starving to death, which is then considered a good outcome as there is no appeal and one less benefit claimant.

Welcome to Compassionate Conservatism!

Some more solidarity here from another lawyer (actually, now an ex lawyer – I earn more as a commercial person than as a commercial lawyer these days).

The reality is that we’re going to have to rely on the big City firms doing criminal defence work pro bono. Which will mean defendants get inexperienced junior lawyers who have no criminal law specialism, rather than people with years of experience.

And as for finding counsel to represent in court, GLWT

To give more perspective to the point crankboy is making, THIS is a list of all the main City firms and what they pay their junior lawyers.
Bear in mind, these firms will act for businesses in relation to commercial matters, rather than private individuals.

just to be pedantic…some of those firms do practice criminal law for fraud, directors duties, bribery etc matters, representing corporations and individuals. But they’re not doing shoplifting or PWITS (unless it’s an oligarch’s wife).

Also, the rollonfriday stats are relatively accurate in the experience of my more successful ex colleagues…

by the way, court interpreting (a gig requirig even more skill and study than lawyering imvho) has been re-outsourced and it’s been a complete clusterf**k. see recent issues of Private Eye for details. hearings have had to be abandoned because interpreters were absent or useless noobs.

To offer some balance, my Wife’s Uncle is one of the Country’s top Barristers / QCs and the Torygraph once claimed he was making over £500k a year from Legal Aid alone, he’s very much in the minority though and towards the end of a pretty amazing career.

The thing is though, ‘the powers that be’ and their mates in the media would love to see this as some sort of gravy train that makes ‘lawyers’ rich off the back of frivolous lawsuits but it’s not really like that – without legal aid we’ll be back to the bad old days of only the wealthy being able to afford legal representation, that would be fun wouldn’t it? What’s the point of having employment laws, equality laws hell even basic human rights if only those who don’t need them, can afford to enforce them?

If only the profession had someone at the top who would actually listen to their ideas in order to sort things out for all concerned. maybe someone with experience of working with professionals in a previous ’employment’
promoted ,sacked promoted sacked promoted….answers on a postcard please I hope I never need to use the law anytime soon!

we’ll be back to the bad old days of only the wealthy being able to afford legal representation, that would be fun wouldn’t it? What’s the point of having employment laws, equality laws hell even basic human rights if only those who don’t need them, can afford to enforce them?

You do realise that half the front bench think this would be absolutely fine.

At the risk of quibbling with anotherwise sound post, it’s an average across salary bandings based on responses to salary surveys, so probably not hugely accurate.

They’re pretty accurate. Spot on for my old firm and know from friends that their firms seem to be accurate too. 1st year, 2nd year and NQ are generally publicised. Most big firms have stepped salary until you hit 4/5 PQE anyway, so there isn’t too much deviation from standard figures.

just to be pedantic…some of those firms do practice criminal law for fraud, directors duties, bribery etc matters, representing corporations and individuals. But they’re not doing shoplifting or PWITS (unless it’s an oligarch’s wife).

Yep, although for those firms, most of the criminal stuff tends to flow from commercial matters (white collar crime). I was always jealous of the guys who did the SOCA/dawn raid type stuff. Always seemed pretty interesting.

Appreciate the difficult situation this has placed lawyers in, but the refusal to take on these LA cases does look a lot like kicking the defendants in the balls in the vain hope their cries of pain may make the gov change their minds. Surely a more principled, and effective, tactic would be for law firms to refuse to take the prosecution work against people affected by this ruling even if it means turning down the paycheck and an easy win.

Appreciate the difficult situation this has placed lawyers in, but the refusal to take on these LA cases does look a lot like kicking the defendants in the balls in the vain hope their cries of pain may make the gov change their minds

In what way is that different from any other type of strike action?

I doubt there is a lawyer out there who is busting their balls doing legal aid work that doesn’t think of this as a last resort.

Surely a more principled, and effective, tactic would be for law firms to refuse to take the prosecution work against people affected by this ruling even if it means turning down the paycheck and an easy win.

Criminal cases in the UK are prosecuted by the state (fiscal service, CPS), so that’s not an option.

If only the profession had someone at the top who would actually listen to their ideas

Part of the challenge here is that there are several legal professions, all of whom have a different view of the world and are represented by different bodies.

And this doesn’t include the fact that there are also several legal systems in the UK as well.

Whereas Gove, as you point out, is a single politician with a single political agenda. Must be like shooting fish in a barrel….

Criminal cases in the UK are prosecuted by the state (fiscal service, CPS), so that’s not an option.

I guess loum could be referring to barrister/QC level stuff where the Crown instruct them – unless they have salaried in house barristers ? – although I’ve no idea if these legal aid cuts have any bearing at that level due to the types of crimes? I appreciate that in any case this would be a tiny % of cases.

Ah I see what you mean thegreatape.

I’d been looking at it from a summary cases perspective…but you’re absolutely right, the CPS provides loads of work to barristers for more serious stuff.

Up here it’s only recently – last few years/post Cadder – that we’ve had police station access to legal advice. You know the geography, so you can imagine the ball ache it is to get a solicitor to attend the police station when the sole local one who is part of the scheme (the others have all refused due to it being uneconomical) is unavailable. Solicitors attending from Aberdeen, Dundee or south of the central belt. What an efficient use of their, the prisoner and the polices time! Not a grumble at solicitors by the way.

Along with the legal aid changes, the tories have another card up their sleeves which is make it financially crippling for the poor to plea innocent that way we can ensure that only the wealthy can afford justice, the plebs just have to bend over and take it.

http://www.blakemorgan.co.uk/news-events/news/2015/04/02/how-wealthy-afford-plead-not-guilty/

indeed it is costing a mate of mine £3k to plead not guilty to a driving offence [ that would lead to a criminal record if found guilty]

He does not get it back even if found innocent

Interesting discussion, lots of facts and understanding. Compare this to previous threads where nurses, ambulance, fire fighters and police officers have been under the cost cutting cosh and the response has been “if you don’t like it get a job in the private sector you lazy public sector waster”. How does it go now, when they came for the nurses I said nothing because it didn’t affect me, when they came for the fire fighters I said nothing because…. You get the gist. Is this in fact the majority vocal STW crowd? along with middle management IT Audi drivers, or is that all just stereotyping as well. Who the hell voted for them then? The conservatives that is.

Who the hell voted for them then? The conservatives that is.

Day to day, people have more cash in their pockets under the conservatives as if you cut out all of the protections and rights of citizens that saves cash for people to buy shit they don’t need.

Can’t blame the conservatives for attacking the poor and anyone who didn’t go to public school, as its what they do and its not as if they hide it!

Welcome to the me, me, me society.

Compare this to previous threads where nurses, ambulance, fire fighters and police officers have been under the cost cutting cosh and the response has been “if you don’t like it get a job in the private sector you lazy public sector waster”

Was it?

Not really.

Did.

Makes me wonder about these new rules due to come in next April. The ones where non-EU workers who are earning less than £35,000 after six years in the UK will be deported.

I suppose from the perspective of a Tory MP, anyone earning less than 35k can’t have a “proper” job and won’t be contributing to society.

So as well as nurses, teachers, most civil servants etc. , legal aid lawyers are also seen as only one step up from those nasty benefits claimants.

junkyard your mate faces three sets of costs.
1 what he pays his solicitor that will be at commercial rates so circa £150 to £300 per hour if he wins he may get a defendants costs order which will refund his legal costs but at legal aid rates ie £42 to £69 per hour so he will get 25% t0 30% back.
2 if he loses or pleads guilty he will pay for the privilege of being prosecuted £200 to £500 region and mood dependent.
3 he will also pay court costs for the use of the court facilities fixed by offence and plea £150 to £1000 this is basically a massive cosh to get people to plead guilty as the system is buckling under the strain of cuts and capital expenses.

oh and he may get a victim surcharge on top!

Funny story of the day I spent all morning at court for a hearing where the fixed fee is £0 waiting to deal with three Estonians we were waiting for an interpreter after 3 1/2 hours we got a Russian interpreter deliberately booked on the basis 2 defendants could speak a bit of English 1 could speak a bit of Russian so if we did the hearing in English and had it translated into Russian then between them they should be able to work out what was going on..Also for my £0 I had to explain the case to the Prosecutor and tell her what she needed to do as no one had given her the papers.

soulwood I think you will find the same people speak up for the fire-fighters nurses and police .
my Best mate is a firefighter, ny wife a trainee radiographer, I understand and see the impact of police cuts on a daily basis and drive a fiat panda bought cheap.

I don’t know what you’d call it, a duty scheme, legal aid scheme, whatever, but if you’re part of that are you obliged to take any/all work that comes your way? Because that ^ just sounds ludicrous to me.

as someone with a string of qualifications who left a lucrative private sector job to join the police as a vocation for idealistic reasons, and who’s just spent 3 years managing a police custody suite, I would say that the legal aid solicitors I met were a massive bunch of well qualified people who’ve taken up a vocation for idealistic reasons. It’s certainly not for the money, the hours or the lovely working environment and company they get to keep.

Agree with an earlier poster that (along with many of the austerity measures, and some of the police reforms), it’s got as much to do with political ideology as it does protecting the public purse.

To be fair when I read the OP I thought “obvious troll is obvious”, but he seems to have unwittingly prompted quite an informed and considered thread. Which he probably wouldn’t get on the Daily Bile comments section.

To be fair when I read the OP I thought “obvious troll is obvious”, but he seems to have unwittingly prompted quite an informed and considered thread. Which he probably wouldn’t get on the Daily Bile comments section.

It didn’t turn out quite how he expected, but re-affirmed my faith that some/most of our public service employees do a great job under trying conditions for bugger all pay.

Sorry to keep chipping in but it is clearly a subject about which I have a personal need to keep presenting my and my colleagues side.
The Duty scheme is a rota an individual solicitor is on call to cover all work at police stations for either 24 or 12 hours if he is busy it either goes to his firm or back up ie any other member of the scheme willing to take it .The rota’d solicitor is contractually obliged to take the job the firm / back up are not .
At court the duty solicitor s primary obligation is to represent those in custody everything else is discretionary dependent on the duty solicitor’s opinion of what is required .
So the duty solicitor scheme is essentially A and E cover to stabalise the case .
Our protest is to do this urgent immediate work because we are bound by our franchise contracts to do it notwithstanding the government’s unilateral change of the renumeration in breach of last years promise.
Legal Aid is a means of funding the case either from the start or any subsequent point. We are only “obliged” to undertake paying work within our competence ( the cab rank principal) . this is not a real obligation but an ethical moral one. Our position is that we cannot competently work at the proposed pay rates and stay in business so we decline to take work at that rate as we would have to cut corners .
Aside from my morning anecdote my afternoon was spent reading a lever arch file of unused material that the Cps said was not relevant. I have discovered that all the witness who did e_fits that the Cps say match my client also failed to pick him out on identification parades . The pay rate for reading “unused material” £0 per hour. The importance priceless.
We already do shed loads in our own jobs for free I have spent the last two days working under the pre change regime for exactly no extra cash I have done the court staff’s job for them I have done the Cps job in “briefing” their barristers on the facts so the case could proceeded.
And I am expected to swallow a further reduction in fees without compliant.

This really has been an educational thread and particular thanks to crankboy for opening our eyes to the workings of the legal world. It makes me despair even more of this country and its self-serving politicians.

Something is surely going to give. The situation as described is beyond ridiculous and is surely unsustainable. What happens when no legal representation is available for defendants? Do they just not get a defense? Or does the cSe collapse? It’s all a bit surreal and very obviously unfair.

To be fair when I read the OP I thought “obvious troll is obvious”, but he seems to have unwittingly prompted quite an informed and considered thread.

Very true 😀

Sorry to keep chipping in

Dont be your posts on other threads have changed me from the have a pop to have some sympathy
you make a persuasive case for the defence 😉

Compare this to previous threads where nurses, ambulance, fire fighters and police officers have been under the cost cutting cosh and the response has been “if you don’t like it get a job in the private sector you lazy public sector waster”.

I’m not keeping tabs on what other people say but I’m pretty sure that I didn’t say that on those previous threads. Perhaps you can actually identify some hypocrites so we can jeer and boo them?

I went from university to jaw school with no sense of vocation, no sense of justice or fairness. I wanted to become a lawyer to earn good money (I was the first in my family to go to university, so have never had any meaningful career guidance). I then trained at a leading firm and became a corporate lawyer. I helped people become rich by, among other things, helping them sell their businesses. The world of legal aid funded criminal defence work was far away from my thoughts.

I discovered that any legal work is a very hard way to make any money, and certainly will be steering my daughter away from it. But my sense of fairness and justice has grown over the years and I salute the likes of crankboy to do what I never did: use training and knowledge of the law to ensure that the accused are fairly represented when up against the might of the state.

You guys should be the best paid, not fighting for funding to do such valuable work. Grayling and now Gove are a disgrace.

OMITN +1

The law is an incredibly diverse profession, from ambulance chasers to lawyers doing nothing but syndicated/bond finance deals for banks, to lawyers working in criminal defence. The only characteristic shared across all of the different types of lawyer is the term itself, yet most people have a view of the profession as a whole, which is generally disparaging of those busting their gut providing a quasi public service for a fraction of the money of their counterparts working in fields much less important to the very people forming those views.

Next time you see a lawyer, give him a hug 🙂

Amazing insights in this thread, thank you to all for both that and for those that are doing the work. The narrow-sighted new rules are staggering and a clear smack down to the general population.

Now where’s the OP gone? Has he been educated enough to express if his views are still the same?

What happens when no legal representation is available for defendants? Do they just not get a defense? Or does the cSe collapse? It’s all a bit surreal and very obviously unfair.

Basically yes. Probably longer term we’ll see US style plea bargaining introduced which will massively cut down the need for legal representation of poor defendants as they’ll be faced with a Hobsons choice: plead guilty to a crime you didn’t commit and take 1 year in prison, or ask for a trial (with poor quality legal representation) and risk 5-10 years if you loose.

Now where’s the OP gone?

Trolling somewhere else…

There’s even a play on the subject!

http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2015/jul/07/rebecca-lenkiewicz-interview-ida-the-invisible-jane-wenham-witch-walkern

The Criminal Bar has now voted to stop accepting any new cases.

So, no solicitors and no barristers – going to be a bit tricky to run the justice system now…

[edit] Oh and Gove about to appear before the House of Commons Justice committee in the next few minutes – be interesting how he handles it….

Very good thread. Criminal barrister friends are also very upset about the Probation Service.

The pay rate for reading “unused material” £0 per hour. The importance priceless.

Out of interest: This sounds very much as though an hourly-billing approach to working a case is a terrible model.

I’ve moved over the last few years from (a) hourly billing, to (b) billing by the job but being accountable as though I was billing by the hour, to (c) just being paid to get the hell on with what I’m given to do as well as I reasonably can. (c) is best. Certainly for me, possibly also for my clients.

Is it all completely screwed? Or is there a way of re-designing the way the work is structured and paid for that would make it vaguely remunerative for those involved?