- Jack Straw deplores astonishing growth of legal aid
- By Francic Gibbs Legal Editor
- The TIMES
- 04/03/2009 Make a Comment
- Contributed by: Daveyone ( 29 articles in 2009 )
Jack Straw called last night for an end to lawyers’ high earnings from legal aid as he deplored the “astonishing growth” in the numbers of lawyers paid for by the taxpayer.
The Justice Secretary said: "There is certainly nothing ordained by the Almighty which says that of those paid for by the public purse, lawyers should be any higher than in other professions.”
Mr Straw insisted that he was not drawing a parallel between bankers and legal aid lawyers, but said that there needed to be a similar debate to that taking place in the City about how much lawyers should earn from the state.
Many legal aid lawyers, like many staff in high street banks, earned sums comparable to those in the public sector, he added.
“The work that they do is incredibly important and they do it out of the best traditions of both the law and public services.”
The picture was different for others, however, particularly those at the top and sometimes in the middle, Mr Straw told an audience at the London School of Economics.
“Lawyers and law firms who are dependent on state funding – and I emphasise dependent, as there are many whose existence relies exclusively on the public purse – would be wise to reconsider expectations of earnings,” he said.
Those lawyers exclusively in private practice would be doing so, as market disciplines and the impact of the economic slowdown hit home.
Mr Straw’s comments come as the latest figures of the top ten most highly paid legal aid barristers are to be published.
Despite comments two years ago from the then chairman of the Bar Council that time had run out for the £1 million-a-year legal aid barrister, the new figures would “lead some to wonder how long it takes for that change to arrive", Mr Straw added.
There had been an “extraordinary” rate of growth in the legal aid budget from £536 million in 1982 to about £2 billion today – a real increase of 5.7 per cent a year.
At the same time, the number of practising lawyers had more than doubled over the past 20 years.
“I hope that everyone, taxpaper and lawyer alike, will accept that the growth of spending on legal aid seen in the early part of the decade and before is no longer sustainable," Mr Straw said.
In the early 1970s, there were just over 2,500 barristers and about 32,000 solicitors, compared with 15,000 and 108,000 respectively today, he said. There is roughly one lawyer for every 400 people.
Meanwhile, 50 per cent of legal aid in the crown courts is consumed by 1 per cent of cases.
“I suggest that unless we get a better balance in legal aid – to borrow President Carter’s formulation – we are in danger of becoming ‘over-lawyered and underrepresented.’”
He predicted that to survive, firms would have to merge or become larger and adopt new business models.
People complained that fewer law firms reduced access to justice. But that confused access with physical proximity, Mr Straw said.
He also urged more devolving of work to para-legals and others so that the most highly qualified lawyers did not take on all the work, as had happened in the National Health Service.
The Justice Secretary said: "There is certainly nothing ordained by the Almighty which says that of those paid for by the public purse, lawyers should be any higher than in other professions.”
Mr Straw insisted that he was not drawing a parallel between bankers and legal aid lawyers, but said that there needed to be a similar debate to that taking place in the City about how much lawyers should earn from the state.
Many legal aid lawyers, like many staff in high street banks, earned sums comparable to those in the public sector, he added.
“The work that they do is incredibly important and they do it out of the best traditions of both the law and public services.”
The picture was different for others, however, particularly those at the top and sometimes in the middle, Mr Straw told an audience at the London School of Economics.
“Lawyers and law firms who are dependent on state funding – and I emphasise dependent, as there are many whose existence relies exclusively on the public purse – would be wise to reconsider expectations of earnings,” he said.
Those lawyers exclusively in private practice would be doing so, as market disciplines and the impact of the economic slowdown hit home.
Mr Straw’s comments come as the latest figures of the top ten most highly paid legal aid barristers are to be published.
Despite comments two years ago from the then chairman of the Bar Council that time had run out for the £1 million-a-year legal aid barrister, the new figures would “lead some to wonder how long it takes for that change to arrive", Mr Straw added.
There had been an “extraordinary” rate of growth in the legal aid budget from £536 million in 1982 to about £2 billion today – a real increase of 5.7 per cent a year.
At the same time, the number of practising lawyers had more than doubled over the past 20 years.
“I hope that everyone, taxpaper and lawyer alike, will accept that the growth of spending on legal aid seen in the early part of the decade and before is no longer sustainable," Mr Straw said.
In the early 1970s, there were just over 2,500 barristers and about 32,000 solicitors, compared with 15,000 and 108,000 respectively today, he said. There is roughly one lawyer for every 400 people.
Meanwhile, 50 per cent of legal aid in the crown courts is consumed by 1 per cent of cases.
“I suggest that unless we get a better balance in legal aid – to borrow President Carter’s formulation – we are in danger of becoming ‘over-lawyered and underrepresented.’”
He predicted that to survive, firms would have to merge or become larger and adopt new business models.
People complained that fewer law firms reduced access to justice. But that confused access with physical proximity, Mr Straw said.
He also urged more devolving of work to para-legals and others so that the most highly qualified lawyers did not take on all the work, as had happened in the National Health Service.
Source: https://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/article5841193.ece?Submitted=true
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