Criminal rates lead to legal boycott

CRIMINAL CONTRACTING: Frustration over remuneration comes to a head at a meeting with the Legal Services Commission

Feelings of frustration and anger regarding criminal contracting boiled over last week when practitioners in Brighton boycotted a meeting with the Legal Services Commission.

Approximately half of the 45 solicitors attending the venue refused to meet Commission officials, according to Andrew Bishop of Brighton-based Bishop & Light who boycotted the meeting himself.

Mr Bishop said the unplanned boycott showed the strength of opinion among practitioners over the Commissions' failure to disclose pay rates while expecting them to negotiate the criminal contracts which come into force in April.

'We were told by the Commission's spokesman that they would announce pay rates after practitioners had signed the contract.

No solicitor would advise a client to negotiate a contract without knowing the price,' he added.

Steve Wedd, former chairman of the Criminal Law Solicitors Association (CLSA) and a partner at Brighton-based Wedd Daniel also boycotted the meeting.

He said solicitors in the area were now considering further action which could include a 24-hour refusal to do police station work.

Mr Wedd said duty solicitor groups in Plymouth, Chester, Peterborough, Kings Lynn and Birkenhead were also considering taking action against the contracts.

The CLSA is inviting effected solicitors to sign an objection to the contracting scheme.

A Commission spokeswoman said its stated objective was to have remuneration rates settled by the end of January 2001 which would be before contracts were offered.

'The pay rates will be the results of discussions involving the profession, the Commission and the Lord Chancellor's Department,' she added.

A coalition of criminal practitioner representative bodies - drawn from the Law Society, CLSA, London Criminal Court Solicitors Association and Legal Aid Practitioners Group - has also been formed to put pressure on the Commission.

The chairman of the Law Society's access to justice working party, Rodney Warren, said: 'No one can be surprised that criminal lawyers have at last demonstrated their anger.

Even the oldest dog lying in the gutter breathing its last will eventually bite someone.'

Malcolm Fowler, chairman of the Society's criminal law committee, objected to several aspects of the contract.

He highlighted terms which would force solicitors to withdraw advocacy assistance or cease acting if clients no longer had reasonable grounds for continuing with a defence or reasonable grounds of succeeding in the action.

He commented that such restrictions 'had no part in criminal defence work where people's liberty was at stake'.

Sue Allen