City pay damaging profession's image, says CBI boss

The imbalance between the salaries of City and legal aid solicitors is 'very worrying' and damaging to the profession's public image, leading practitioners warned delegates.

CBI director-general Digby Jones, himself a solicitor, told delegates that he finds it 'very worrying when I'm told that a top of second division London firm is paying 45-50,000 to a one-year qualified solicitor.

It's probably more than the senior partner of a legal aid firm with 30 years' experience.

I think there is a serious imbalance.'

At the closing plenary session on the reputation of the profession, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, the senior partner of City law firm Bates Wells & Braithwaite, said: 'Compared with community lawyers, the City solicitors do not earn their high salaries,' he said, adding: 'The extremely high rates of pay at some firms in the City causes a problem with the public perception of solicitors generally.'

Neil Rose and Jonathan Ames