Go for the easy life

Although I am no longer involved in legal aid work, I was the senior partner of a substantial legal aid practice for a number of years until I retired from that practice in 1997.

I am therefore able to view the government's proposals for a paid defender service with some knowledge of legal aid criminal practice, but dispassionately.Although the USA is often held up as the model of such arrangements, I recall that Russia, in its communist days, provided a similar system.

The idea of the state investigating crimes, prosecuting individuals and defending them is dangerously wrong.The idea of bringing within the state machine services which previously contracted out to the private sector, appears to run against perceived wisdom.

Why is it that the government is so keen to privatise the air traffic control service, but to nationalise the criminal defence service?The set-up costs of the scheme will be enormous.

The state will offer plush offices, good salaries and pension provision (pay-scales will he linked to professional salaries paid by other government departments), and there will be generous holidays and sickness pay.

There will also be a separate tier of administration and no doubt endless meetings to hammer out and discuss policy.Criminal legal aid solicitors generally work for long hours, under enormous pressure, but for low pay, and making their own pension provision, usually from modest accommodation of a type that no government department would entertain.

Many years ago, I came to realise that it was only by extending working hours substantially beyond the norm that a 'profit' was attainable, and often that profit earned by partners in legal aid practices is less than the salary they would receive elsewhere for working far less hard.

Where, therefore, will the government find its saving?It is obvious that the proposed change is more to do with exerting government control over the basic rights of the individual than saving money.

My advice to colleagues undertaking legal aid work is to jump on the bandwagon.

What is being proposed will improve your quality of life and provide for you in retirement.

Forget your clients, few outside the profession care about the service you provide - until, of course, they need help.

Christopher Baxter, Dowse Baxter, London