Barristers offer ‘lifeline’ to criminal solicitors
Barristers’ chambers could provide a ‘lifeline’ to small criminal law firms, Bar Council chairman Nick Green QC has told the Gazette.
But Green criticised some solicitors who he claimed have threatened to ‘blacklist’ any chambers that bid against them for legal aid contracts.
Green said that when the Legal Services Commission next tenders for criminal contracts, likely to be next year, he expects to see barristers’ chambers putting in bids for work using the model procurement company devised by the Bar Council, known as the ProcureCo.
A ProcureCo allows chambers to bolt a commercial vehicle onto their chambers, which can contract directly with the LSC and other volume purchasers of legal services. The ProcureCo will then be able instruct solicitors and others to perform parts of the work.
Green said that if the coalition government seeks to pursue Labour’s plans to contract the criminal defence market, more than 1,000 firms will be left without contracts. The previous legal aid minister Lord Bach had outlined proposals to reduce the number of criminal firms able to do publicly funded work from 1,700 to just 500.
Green said: ‘The bar could provide a lifeline to small criminal law firms that do not get contracts. They could get work from a ProcureCo.’
He said the LSC will award contracts on the basis that the bidder can provide the full range of criminal work, from police station advice to the Crown court, so barristers will need to have links with solicitors to fulfill this.
Barristers and solicitors will be bidding against each other for work, said Green, but they will also need each other, and will be included in each other’s bids or form panel arrangements.
However, Green said the prospect of large sets competing in contracting exercises has alarmed some solicitors, who have threatened to blacklist any chambers that bid against them, and stop referring them work.
‘There are some solicitors’ firms, especially in big cities, which are making threats that if barristers’ chambers bid against them, they will blacklist them and won’t instruct them,’ he said.
Green added: ‘This is an irrational stance, held by the minority. The vast majority of solicitors have worked out that they need to enter into sensible discussions with chambers and think how they can work together. We’re natural partners.’
Comments
Barristers offer 'lifeline'
Can the Bar not see that by entering into direct competition with solicitors they will potentially reduce those who will instruct them.
If I open up an office next to yours doing the same work I would not complain about the lack of agency instructions from you.
If the bar secure a contract in one area, they will get at most an eighth or a tenth of the work in that area, based on the reduced number of suppliers suggested by the MOJ. That means that the rest of the work in the area is undertaken by people they are now competing with. That could seriously limit the work they have coming in.
They need to think this through again.
I see the future...
I would bet that very few chambers will in fact make a bid to the LSC for crime contracts. This is because, as the article notes, any contracted legal provider must provide the LSC with a full service, from police station duty solicitors to litigation/case management to advocacy. Clearly, no chambers as is today can handle that and must therefore find an allied law firm, or law firms, to go in with on the bid, which also means the law firms forsaking making a solo bid on their own - as the LSC will not accept multiple bids from the same provider in the same area.
However - and here's the rub - if a law firm ties its future to a single chambers and makes a procureco bid to the LSC and it's rejected, or very little work is given, then that law firm has had it (i.e. no legal aid work for the length of the contract, perhaps 3 years or more - by which time its crime specialists will have left for pastures new), meanwhile the chambers will just carry on waiting for referrals as usual.
Perhaps a better scenario for the law firm is to merge with a larger legal aid law firm, and together make a bid, proving they can handle all parts of the case - perhaps even with some HCAs on board - and handle a large volume of matters. Then, if needed, they can send work out to barristers as and when needed (as usual) - after all, there is no shortage of criminal barristers.
The likely end result will be just what the MoJ has planned - consolidation of the market.
Collaboration between specialist criminal legal practices
Solicitors should be taking the lead here.
I am interested in hearing from any solicitors' practices that specialise in crime that are based in the Greater Manchester area (that includes Rochdale, Bury, Bolton, Wigan, Salford, Trafford, Manchester, Stockport, Tameside and Oldham) who are interested in working together with other specialist criminal practices to secure an LSC contract - also reducing overheads and improving management of their practice.
We are involved in a project - working on partnership with Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce, the NW regional office of the Law Society, Manchester Law Society, Business Link and the NWDA - to explore the potential to make this kind of collaboration between law firms work effectively.
See more at http://www.inpractice.co.uk/blog
Anyone interested should please email me at acarton@inpractice.co.uk
Allan Carton
Barristers Offer Lifeline
Ah, luverly.... We now start to see the real results of 'franchising' unravelling...
Oh Dear
One has to question the LSC's drive to create savings through de-skilling and economies of scale.
Is it rational. Existing firms adopting a degree of virtualization and the use of freelancers to leverage skill and knowledge for demanding cases offer equivalent if not greater savings together with higher quality.
Is it lawful. The LSC is not mandated to socially engineer the pool of solicitors and barristers by determining the structure of firms, above it's duty to preserve the public purse and maintain the quality of legal aid advice and representation.
And in any event there is no evidence nor is it likely that reducing the number of solicitors will discourage solicitor parents from favouring their and their friend's progeny in granting training contracts.
And as for the Bar, these new exams they are pushing for will kill the independent Bar. Every solicitor knows their firm will demand it's solicitors are qualified to the highest advocacy level.
Barristers "lifeline"
Has Nick Green only just thought through the consequences of Chambers becoming litigators (either themselves or in collaboration with solicitors firms)? Does he really think that a firm of solicitors that also wins a contract and is now in direct competition with a Procureco in a given area is going to instruct that Procureco?
This is not out of spite but out of sound commercial judgment. If I get Barrister A from Procureco to represent my client in Court then next time the client is nicked he might ask for that Procureco and I've lost a client.
The Bar has to realise that if a Chambers goes down the line of competition and gets into bed with some firms then it will need to be very sure that those firms can keep all its barristers busy!
Andrew Bishop