The fact that barristers handling Crown Court trials in 2005 will be paid the same amount of money as they were in 1995 is a disgrace, the chairman of the Bar Council told delegates at its annual conference last Saturday.

Stephen Irwin QC warned that young barristers' confidence in earning a reasonable living by doing publicly funded work was draining away.


Describing ordinary Crown Court rates rather than those earned in the top-end cases as 'the crunch issue', he said: 'Unless the government gives a sensible increase in this important range of fees, addressing the erosion in their value over the last decade, the signal will be understood. The signal will be: "We are prepared to see quality people leave and the quality of people joining sink."'


Irwin: confidence sapped

Mr Irwin said privately funded barristers are now earning twice and perhaps three times that of their publicly funded colleagues, when 20 years ago the difference was around 10%.

'That is a staggering gradient,' he said, adding that the issue had been taken up 'at the highest level' within the Department for Constitutional Affairs and the Treasury.


Mr Irwin praised the voluntary effort of the Bar, saying that the Bar Council estimated that between £3.5 million and £5 million worth of time is given free by barristers. He cited the high-powered group helping the Home Office to improve trials in terrorist cases as an example of the work done.


He also repeated the claim he made at the recent International Bar Association conference in Auckland that the introduction of legal disciplinary practices (LDPs) - strongly mooted by Sir David Clementi in his review of the legal services market - would fuel a compensation culture in the UK to rival that in the US.


Insisting that Britain does not yet have a compensation culture, he said: 'The best possible recipe for creating [one] in the UK would be to allow outside capitalist ownership of law practices.'


Mr Irwin also reiterated his belief that there was a risk with LDPs of criminal or terrorist control of law practices. 'Do we really want Maxwell Legal?'