CARTER: blow to careers of junior barristers as cost-cutting solicitors seek alternatives


The junior bar is under an 'imminent and direct threat' from the rise in solicitor-advocates and the use of in-house counsel by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), it was suggested this week.



Last month, the Gazette reported a huge surge in the number of solicitors gaining higher rights of audience as an additional means of income.



Sundeep Bhatia, solicitor-advocate and vice-chairman of the Society of Asian Lawyers, said: 'The threat to the junior bar has come from the Carter reforms. The bar thought it had got a good deal for junior barristers, but its approach was short-sighted and failed to look ahead to the possible consequences.



'With all the legal aid cuts, solicitors have sought to reduce their own costs and one of the few ways they can do this is by using in-house solicitor-advocates, rather than instruct the junior bar.'



In addition, he added, the CPS was seeking to make savings by keeping more work in-house, reducing the Crown Court work available to junior barristers.



Bhatia said: 'This is a spiralling trend that spells an imminent and direct threat to the junior bar.'



Tim Lawson-Cruttenden, chairman of the Solicitors Association of Higher Court Advocates, said that the continuity of service that defence and prosecution solicitor-advocates provided was an advantage and a 'definite threat to the junior bar.'



Julia Beer, chairwoman of the Young Barristers Committee, said she was not aware of the trend among solicitors to keep advocacy work in-house because of fee rates, but she agreed that the CPS's cost-saving strategy was a problem for young barristers.



She said the lack of prosecution work available to junior barristers made it harder for them to gain experience and progress their careers.



'It is vital that the junior independent bar is able to maintain the right depth and breadth of prosecution work,' said Beer.



She added: 'It is in the public interest to have well-trained external prosecution advocates - without the right complement of prosecution work the budding junior external advocate cannot progress and more importantly prosecution standards will be compromised.'



Commenting on Bhatia's remarks, Bar Council chairman Tim Dutton QC said the Carter reforms merely adjusted the fees of the junior bar to bring them in line with inflation after a ten-year freeze. He said: 'The idea that the Bar Council should not have fought for such a basic requirement is absurd - as is the suggestion, if such it be, that the client's best interests should not be served by solicitors choosing the best advocate for the case.'



A CPS spokeswoman said approximately 26% of its lawyers were Crown advocates (higher court advocates) and a large proportion of them were members of the junior bar.



She said deployment of in-house Crown advocates would continue to increase, but that did not signal the end of the self-employed bar.



'There is a vast amount of publicly funded work in the higher courts and the bar is well equipped and well able to compete for its share,' she added.



Catherine Baksi