Solicitors and barristers reached an agreement this week that would see both sides of the profession paid the same amount for advocacy work in family cases.

However, the Law Society expressed disappointment that the Ministry of Justice has not yet approved the deal, and instead has delayed the publication of the final fee scheme for family work.

The deal was worked out by the Law Society, the Family Law Bar Association, Resolution and the Association of Lawyers for Children last week, at the request of the MoJ.

Under the agreement, solicitors and barristers would no longer be paid different rates for advocacy work. Instead, the current hourly rates would be replaced by a graduated fee which would be the same for both sides of the profession. It would include an uplift to take account of more difficult work.

Mark Stobbs, Law Society director of legal policy, said: ‘The professions have now reached agreement about a fee structure which will ensure that expert practitioners are properly remunerated. These will also achieve harmonisation of fees for barristers and solicitors. We hope that this agreement can be approved by the LSC and government.’

In a ministerial statement this week legal aid minister Lord Bach said the MoJ and LSC would be ‘working on the fee schemes over the summer’. He said these would be finalised and announced in time for the September bid round for new civil contracts in April 2010.

Law Society chief executive Des Hudson said it was ‘disappointing’ the MoJ had not announced a decision when ‘the Society had worked to a demanding timetable to help the LSC and MoJ reach a scheme’.

  • Meanwhile, a report by the House of Commons justice committee published last week warned that the LSC’s family legal aid reforms have caused ‘an exodus of senior practitioners from publicly funded family law’.