Lord Phillips raps fees as paper defends lawyers

After the excitement of the jubilee holiday, it appeared to be back to business as usual for the papers - lawyer-bashing.

However, this time the criticism sprung from a different source - the Master of the Rolls, Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, who launched a stinging attack on the old chestnut of lawyers' fees.

Lord Phillips, the head of civil justice in England and Wales and the former chairman of the BSE inquiry, 'said that "extravagantly high" legal fees were driving up insurance premiums...

and it is the litigant who has to bear the cost' (The Independent, 3 June).

Although he admitted that 'for the stars of each profession, very large earnings can be justified on the basis of supply and demand', he continued that 'on some occasions they are paid more than they should be, and it's very difficult to know what to do about it'.

Even the Woolf reforms, which at their heart were aimed at reducing the cost of litigation, came in for criticism.

'Initial indications do not suggest that case costs have decreased,' said Lord Phillips.

'Each potential saving in the reform is offset by other changes which require more work or bring forward work to an early stage.'

But it was not all bad news - an Independent editorial pleaded with readers to 'be nice to a lawyer today' (3 June).

Calling Lord Phillips 'stuffy', it claimed that it would 'not fall into the easy trap of recycling old lawyer jokes', and added that 'what people really want to hear is a passionate defence of the socially useful work done by highly trained, clever people in securing justice in disputes which would otherwise be decided by the possessions of the larger private army'.

The image of the highly-paid, sleekly pinstriped lawyer is, of course, one that the profession is trying to shed.

And with some success, said The Daily Telegraph, which examined the usefulness of the traditional Oxbridge degree in gaining entry to the professions (8 June).

While 'banking unabashedly still recruits heavily from Oxbridge', the law 'is trying to widen its appeal and give support to those from less privileged backgrounds'.

Nigel Savage, chief executive of the College of Law, admitted that 'Oxbridge still gives you a bit of a head start, but you have to be streetwise to be a good lawyer, and you may find more streetwise lawyers at a redbrick university'.

However, in what could be seen as a regression back to the bad old days, The Times reported how 'the Lord Chancellor has cancelled this year's open advertisements for judges, in a move that has angered many women lawyers' (6 June).

By deciding to 'draw only on the lists of those already identified' - and those 'already identified' are widely believed to include few women - the Lord Chancellor has incurred the wrath of 'leading female advocates who want him to cast his net more widely'.

The paper noted that already 'there are no women law lords, three out of 35 in the Court of Appeal and only six High Court judges out of 105'.

However, Lord Irvine generously pointed out in a letter explaining his decision that he 'has already identified a large number of people who he considers appointable to the High Court, and he would not therefore want to raise false expectations or to put people to unnecessary effort'.

Any disgruntled female lawyers would be best advised to steer clear of the inaugural edition of The Politico from Politico Publishing.

It contains 'a rather disturbing article by Claire Fox', the director of the Institute of Ideas and a regular panellist on Radio 4's 'Moral Maze' (The Independent, 5 June): 'It's a horrible thought,' she begins, 'but I've started dreaming of three-in-a-bed sessions with the Lord Chancellor.'

As Politico's mission statement claims that 'we want to provide a monthly magazine that the public could buy in their local newsagent', it raises the question: were they thinking of the top shelf?

Victoria MacCallum