Barristers' pro bono work drops steeply as salaries continue to grow, Bar told

Pro bono work done by barristers dropped dramatically last year, show figures released at last weekend's annual Bar Council conference.Results of a survey, conducted by accountants BDO Stoy Hawyard, found that the average value of pro bono work undertaken at normal charge-out rates in 2001 equated to 2,626 per barrister, compared with 7,500 per barrister in the previous 12 months.The pro bono figures coincided with research showing that the Bar is still growing in size and profitability, with overall earnings reaching the 1.6 billion mark, a rise of about 2 billion over the previous year.

Those barristers at the top of the profession saw their incomes increasing steadily, with QCs in the upper quartile of the survey earning 278,000 annually, up about 10,000 on last year.

Numerically, the Bar grew by 2.4% to more than 10,000 practising barristers.

But the rate of growth has slowed recently from nearly 5% annually between 1986 to 1998.The report attributed the drop in the value of pro bono work at the Bar to the fact that one unnamed set of chambers - which had done a significant amount the year before - was not participating in the survey this year.

A Bar spokesman said it would be 'misleading to suggest the profession is doing less pro bono work'.He pointed out that the Bar had recently added the Bar in the Community Scheme - which provides advice to the management boards of voluntary organisations - to its portfolio of pro bono initiatives.

The survey illustrated the wide differences in levels of economic success between various practice areas at the Bar.

According to the report, 'average receipts for barristers specialising in criminal and family work are around half the value of receipts for those specialising in commercial and Chancery work'.The high levels of remuneration at the top end of the Bar triggered a comment form Lord Woolf, the Lord Chief Justice.

He told the conference: 'For a minority of members of the Bar, even allowing for inflation, earnings are breathtakingly high.' And Lord Woolf also drew attention to the disparity between different ends of the profession, saying: 'There is another side of the picture ...

of barristers who are competent and hard working but dependent on publicly funded work whose earnings are disturbingly modest.

I can understand they must feel battered.

Their difficulties need to be acknowledged and dealt with.'The report also compared barrister billing rates with those of solicitors.

It suggested that the junior bar was charging around half the hourly rate of junior litigators at law firms.

Charge out rates for silks, said the researchers, 'are roughly the same as those of experienced litigation partners'.The proportion of chambers' clerks who are paid on a commission-only basis has fallen, the researchers found, from about 35% in 1999 to 27% in 2001.

Those receiving a straight salary rose significantly from about 23% in 1999 to about 35% this year.Jonathan Ames