What planet is Lord Carter on? A partner doing county court legal aid work gets a maximum of £70 per hour if in the south-east. The band-one guideline rate for summary assessment for a similarly experienced fee-earner is £184, while a trainee solicitor will attract a rate of £100. The guideline rate has been methodically calculated based on expense-of-time surveys.


Fundamentally, Lord Carter suggests that legal aid lawyers are still overpaid. Who does he think he is kidding? On a strict analysis, the legal aid rates already represent a massive discount over the rates that the Supreme Court Costs Office deems reasonable in most cases.



It should not be a difficult case to make on behalf of the downtrodden legal aid lawyer. If the Law Society were a public relations company, it would have been sacked on this one long ago.



Stephen Wright, Godfrey Wright Law Costs Draftsmen, Manchester