Reduced fees could lead to economic disaster for the criminal and family Bar

BARRISTERS: Angry practitioners may desert the profession if government proposals go ahead

Government proposals to rein in fees for publicly funded legal work threaten to ruin the family and criminal Bar, the head of the barristers' profession warned at the weekend.

Speaking at the Bar Council's annual conference, Jonathan Hirst QC said the government's plans to cut fees had 'caused very great dismay and real anger amongst decent practitioners throughout the country'.

He added: 'The government's proposals, if implemented in anything like their current form, would pose a very real threat to the strength of the family and criminal Bars.' Mr Hirst went on to predict that younger barristers would desert those areas of work, and even find other professions if ministers were successful in reducing fees.

Mr Hirst also targeted the forthcoming Criminal Defence Service (CDS) for criticism.

He said a poorly-funded service would exacerbate problems at the criminal bar, and he asked: 'Do we really want all half decent lawyers to practice in the commercial fields, leaving a rump of the less successful and less able to look after real people and the issues affecting their lives?'

Doubts over the CDS - and specifically the salaried defence element contained in it - were also expressed at the conference by the Liberal Democrat leader, Charles Kennedy MP.

He told delegates that his party 'will continue to campaign to protect the independence of the defence lawyers'.

Mr Kennedy said that 'in politically contentious cases there is at least the possibility that defence lawyers would be inhibited in arguing their case in the way that would be best for their client'.

Meanwhile, delegates heard that reform of the jury system could be one of Lord Justice Auld's key proposals in his final report for the review of the criminal courts.

He said he was considering suggesting that trial by jury be curtailed in either-way offences, some fraud cases, cases where children were either defendants or principal witnesses and other cases 'where the exercise for the fact-finder is one of analysis of technical or otherwise complex evidence, rather than an assessment of reliability or credibility of witnesses'.

Jonathan Ames