Lawyers' fury at Irvine pay 'insult'Criminal lawyers are up in arms about the Lord Chancellor's 'insulting' attempts to keep their pay down while City salaries soar.In his recent letter to the Law Society freezing legal aid pay rates, the Lord Chancellor, Lord Irvine, said: 'It is not surprising that legal aid firms report lower earnings.

I am concerned that they are sufficient, competent practitioners - we do not need to attract the very best.' The Criminal Law Solicitors Association has responded angrily to the 'insult' and demanded urgent talks on the subject of pay.

The CLSA said criminal lawyers earn an average of 23,000 under the current system, while newly qualified lawyers in the City are now earning 42,000.

Rodney Warren, CLSA vice-chairman said: 'It is a huge gulf.'CLSA chairman Franklin Sinclair went on: 'There has been no meaningful increase in the payment to criminal law solicitors since 1992.

We need an extra 27% to just keep pace with inflation in that time.'Garages now charge more per hour to service motor cars than solicitors are paid for turning out in the middle of the night to represent their clients.'When introducing the Access to Justice Bill last year, Lord Irvine said that the new Criminal Defence Service -- due to launch in October -- would guarantee good quality criminal defence in police stations and courts.

But Mr Sinclair has now attacked Lord Irvine's comments as 'no more than window dressing.'A Lord Chancellor's Department spokesman said: 'The Lord Chancellor's concern is to ensure that publicly-funded legal services are provided by competent lawyers and he feels that there are at present sufficient competent lawyers to undertake this work at the current level of remuneration.'Duty solicitors' pay is coming under fire as the Law Society's ruling Council prepares to vote on the first phase of the criminal litigation accreditation scheme this week.

Under the scheme, being put in place in partnership with the CLSA and the Legal Services Commission -- which had been planning a scheme of its own -- accreditation in the first, police station stage is likely to cost law firms 250-350.

This will rise to 600 in the court duty solicitor stage.

Existing duty solicitors will be 'passported' into the new arrangements.With no plans for pay increases or state subsidy, Mr Warren, who also chairs the criminal litigation accreditation scheme task force, described the government's policy as a 'double whammy' blow to criminal lawyers.Anne Mizzi