What is the best way to combat legal aid cuts?
Thursday 17 December 2009 by Catherine Baksi
By now many of you will be as inured to the howls of outrage from the profession over legal aid cuts as you are to the cuts themselves. Both are becoming an almost weekly, even daily, occurrence, it saddens one to report.
It is apparent though, that however apocalyptic and doom-laden the profession’s language, it seems to be having little or no effect – the government just isn't listening.
Is it time lawyers responded more combatively? One suggested to us that maybe they should take a leaf out of the book of the BA cabin crew, who have planned a 12-day strike over pay, or the refuse collectors of Leeds, who went on strike for 11 weeks until their proposed pay cuts were renegotiated. If lawyers downed tools and refused to represent anyone, surely there would be more pressing things to think about than suing them over breach of competition laws. The government would have to act, and act swiftly.
Professions hardly ever resort to withdrawing their labour, of course. It would hurt clients, and anyway it's just not the done thing.
In any case, apologists for the government’s tin ear on this subject might argue that perhaps things aren’t as bad as they’re sometimes painted. A survey of criminal legal aid firms carried out by the National Audit Office showed that, while one in six said they made no profit on criminal legal aid last year, the average profit was a pretty respectable 18.4%. It found that 37% made a 20% profit, and 29% made a profit of between 10-19%. Tesco’s margin is about 9%, for comparison. Time for action, or more sober reflection?
Comments
Solicitors and Profit
Profit is what is used to pay partners their remuneration and tax and also to spend on capital budgets next year. It is not what is left over-as with a company-after all expenses,including directors remuneration and bonuses, is taken care of.
For each partner in a 3 partner firm to be paid the gross salary-before expenses-of an MP[ £65k], the firm would have to earn, at 20% profit, just under £1million in fees.
In other words: if fee income is £500k for a two partner firm and profit is at 18%, the partners would share £90k (upon which they would have to pay tax), at 20% they would share £100k and at 10% they would share £50k. So that is £45k, £50k or £25K each, before tax. Not a lot for all the worry, stress, bureaucracy and agony.
Apart from that, Lord Carter and the MoJ and the LSC urged Solicitors to become efficient so that profit would increase under the reduced fees paid under fixed fees.
Time for sober accurate commentary perhaps!?
solicitors and profit
michael,
excellent points.
i wonder how many partners in relatively small firms manage to earn more than a cps lawyer does?.a civil servant wouldn't have to worry about pii insurance, the bank phoning up about the overdraft, all the lsc stuff the complete, audits, staff problems- and then tuck some money away for a dismal pension.
oh -and then there's the problem of succession!
t
legal aid cuts
As few lawyers are going to leave clients in the lurch, the government will get away with treating the legal profession like dirt. A bit like human shields in fact.
However, as gradually fewer young lawyers go into legal aid work, the time will come sooner or later, when there will be a horrifying miscarriage of justice and public opinion may at last mobilise. At least we don't have the death penalty - look at USA, where the failure to provide proper representation for even murder defendants has led to wrongful executions. But sonmeone serving 20 odd years for a crime he didn't commit is quite bad enough.
I am probably fairly typical
I am probably fairly typical of a group of people - I qualified as a lawyer doing Crime and Family. But the money was genuinely not sufficient for even basic living in London. I loved the job, would put up with the stress, waiting and travel. But I looked to the future and saw only more misery.
All the more senior people seemed to constantly moan about legal aid cuts, not earning enough money, how things had got progressively worse. No government is going to start putting legal aid fees up. We are heading for the nightmare vision that is often painted - cheap, low quality legal services.
Things didn't look like they were gonna get better. If there was a pot of something valuable (let alone a pot of gold) at the end of slogging your guts out for little more than a Virgin Air Steward (no disrespect intended - just I thought that 5 years education and training and debts of £25k might get me a little wage boost). Clearly not.
What can be done? Public opinion isn't going to change. A strike - I'd be cheering like BA cabin crew if this could happen. Then they'd see. It'd be a nightmare for the Courts Service and Police. But is there any appetite? Lawyers are to disparate a group. For many it is a vocation. Vocational jobs nearly always pay less - taking advantage of the fact that there will always be someone who wants to do it - however bad.
Doom Mongers on Fri, 18/12/2009 - 11:40.
I totally agree with your comments and like you belive that the goverment is running the legal aid scheme into the ground.You dont have to strike though, imagine what would happen if no firms agreed to sign the LSC contract at all and instead opted out and every firm went private just as then NHS dentists did.The courts could not deal with the majority of clients who could not afford to pay and the criminal justice system would be brought into utter chaos if each of these disadvantaged persons then claimed that their basic human rights to a fair trial, legal advice and proper representation were being infringed through lack of proper government funding.The Lsc would beable to hold any firms to ransom anymore and would not have any form of control over them.
You cannot provide legal aid on the cheap and I am sure that there are people pleading guilty at courts even now because they cannot afford to pay for legal advice or a trial.A legal aid service that once provided fairness and justice for all is now in total disarray and is a complete and utter shambles.
Legal Aid Cuts
I totally agree with the previews comments. The government is getting away with driving legal aid into the ground, both in criminal and civil cases for the simple reasons that lawyers are unlikely to strike because of a disparity in individuals (amongst other things) many of whom are into the profession truly and simply by vocation. I have been involved in civil legal aid since 1992 and I have never had a good news story about the profession. The hours are extremely long, the job very stressful and the remuneration frankly pitiful. I believe that contrary to the popular belief, legal aid solicitors are the least well paid professionals around, yet the dedication I have seen throughout the years from colleagues is nothing short than commendable. As a previous commenter said, solicitors will not leave clients in the lurch so despite lack of funding, we continue providing services commensurate with the quality clients expect without any extra funding - in effect on a pro bono basis and all the while receiving unflattering comments either from the public, the lsc or the MoJ.
Despite my strong affection for the profession and the job, I find myself lost for words when young school leavers or trainees ask me to comment on why they should join the profession to provide legal aid advice.
I am seriously concerned that unless the power that be wake up and really smell the coffee, we will simply no longer have a legal aid advice service worth the name with terrible implications in relation to access to justice and human rights.
The only way to combat legal aid cuts
There is only one answer -- and it's very simple indeed. Give up legally aided work and take up profitable privately paying cases (even if that means retraining) or if you're a criminal solicitor and determined to stick with crime -- join CPS where you will get job security, a guaranteed pension and no pay cuts .