The prospect of solicitors boycotting criminal legal aid work appears to have risen following Dominic Raab’s reappointment yesterday as lord chancellor and justice secretary.

Raab’s predecessor, Brandon Lewis, reassured MPs last week that solicitors would benefit from the government’s revised criminal legal aid offer and further plans would be set out as part of the government’s response to the Bellamy review at the end of November.

Whether Raab continues on the same path is unclear. During his previous tenure as justice secretary, he refused to meet the criminal bar to discuss his controversial £135m reform package, instead accusing barristers of ‘holding justice to ransom’ with their ‘needless and indefensible’ strike.

Crime contract holders are due to meet on 8 November in Birmingham to discuss next steps should the government’s response to Bellamy be unsatisfactory. The Law Society has already warned that it will advise members to shun criminal defence work if solicitors do not receive a fair deal.

Jonathan Black, a partner at BSB Solicitors, told the Gazette that ‘with the warning from the chancellor that departments need to find savings, I am concerned that Raab may again have us in his sights. Perhaps the four-year delay in Bellamy has meant that we have missed our window’.

Tuckers solicitor Stephen Davies said publicly funded criminal defence was haemorrhaging practitioners.

‘There is a human capacity issue that has resulted in gridlock and paralysis in the courts. If the Law Society advises its members to stop undertaking this important work due to the Ministry of Justice’s refusal to offer parity of pay with the bar and the Crown Prosecution Service, it would be right in doing so.’

Raab may have refused to speak to the bar during his previous tenure as justice secretary, Davies said, ‘but as lawyers continue to leave in their droves and contract holders flex their industrial muscle, he has an opportunity to avoid causing serious detriment to the criminal justice system and ensure the sustainability of the professions’.

 

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