I am a barrister practising in family law in the North East. I just wanted to say how reassuring I found your blog on ‘family justice under threat’ and your subsequent blog speculating as to possible alternative careers!

Your thoughts almost precisely echo those of myself and other barristers at my chambers.

There is a terrible sense of inevitability about it all – even having agreed to extend the LSC consultation, Lord Bach emphasises the recurring theme ‘there is no more money in the pot’.

We have done some research in our chambers – interpreters in the family courts charge in the region of £200 per day for work in court, £100 for a half day. The LSC regularly pay in the region of £20 – £25 an hour for interpreting. They have no policy as to a maximum charge and when Vera Baird was asked in the House of Commons how much the legal aid board spent on interpreters in 2006 – 2007, and what was projected, she reported that this data was not collated but was just part of the general disbursements claimed by providers (we are cynical that it is not politically convenient to do so – in contrast lawyers costs are diligently calculated). Responses to a consultation report in 2005 on cost of interpreters in immigration cases concluded that imposition of a max charge of £25 per hour would be insufficient incentive for an interpreter to gain a qualification (!).

Interpreters do very valuable work in the courts, but it now seems in this strange world that the government would endorse a circumstance whereby a trained legal professional of many years experience, conducting a difficult case in court, would be regularly paid less per hour than a person who interprets that lawyer’s questions and the answers in response.

It just seems barmy. Jack Straw in the speech to which you referred accepted that legal aid lawyers should be paid “decent” rates. I think non-lawyers would be genuinely surprised by the sort of hourly rates which the current government proposals indicate.

Our chambers has a connection to a Member of Parliament who warned that as general rule unless an issue is brought sufficiently to the attention of ministers, and indeed becomes sufficiently controversial as to be raised by the shadow front bench, it is likely that consultation proposals will be implemented more or less as seen. We have written to various Members of Parliament but have had no response as yet. I know that the FLBA is doing all it can.

I am sorry that I cannot be more optimistic. At chambers like you we take our work seriously and on the whole enjoy it and feel it to be valuable. However we also must bear in mind that it is stressful. Many of our clients face never seeing their children again. The stakes are high, arguably the highest they could ever be. Our work regularly includes the reading of voluminous papers, often at short notice and at times that intrude into our evenings and weekends. It includes cross examining experts on difficult medical issues.

Whilst we take our work seriously, like you if these reforms are implemented we will have to contrast the rates at which we would be paid with the fact that it is highly stressful, demanding work and intrudes into our personal lives. We will have to compare the rates payable in personal injury law and other areas of civil law.

There will be a cull of the family bar, but regrettably it seems that is what the government want.

We all desperately want the government to see sense and realise the terrible likely effect of these reforms, but fear they won’t. Costs could be cut in some areas and could be done in a way sensitive to this type of work, but it seems the government is not interested. I am cynical that they hammer junior barristers, whilst retaining VHCC etc – do they prefer to retain the supposed ‘fat cat’ figures for their political convenience?

It is crucial that as many people as possible respond to the consultation, particularly now we have been given some extra weeks to do so.

Anyway I am sorry to have written at length in a pretty donwhearted way. I have found your blog very interesting to read (I am impressed that you make time for your practice, baby and blogging!) and will look at it regularly from now on.

There are a few reasons. I have five mins to give you a ‘back of a fag packet response’:

You can now access a barrister directly in many cases under the direct / public access scheme, but by and large it does not apply to family cases. The general reasons for not allowing free access to barristers as I understand them are because of our slimline ‘self-employed sole trader’ kind of set up we are not set up for handling client funds or dealing with correspondence etc (and are prohibited from handling litigation) – the administrative set up is simply not there. We don’t keep records in the same way that would be necessary if handling correspondence and we are out at court an unable to respond to urgent correspondence etc in the way that a solicitor set up could. Solicitors do perform quite distinct functions from barristers – although there is overlap where it comes to advocacy and advice the litigation side of things is solicitor only. The bar are specialists in advocacy and advice.

Generally the public access scheme does not permit us to take instructions direct where there are likely to be substantial issues of fact or lots of contested evidence – we are not in a position to be gathering or putting together evidence or bundles etc and our independence as advocates would be compromised if we performed that role (even if it were practically possible for us to do, which it isn’t). In that type of case there needs to be someone to get the case up and running and that person really needs to be a solicitor rather than the lay client herself.

In family cases there is an almost outright bar. I think it is largely because all the reasons I have gone through above apply particularly to family cases where there are very sensitive issues of fact, a particular need for advocates to remain independent from the information gathering exercise, and a need for prompt responses to correspondence (for example about last minute crises about contact), to continuously advise the client as things progress and to prepare the case on paper prior to a hearing. Solicitors perform a crucial role in all this as do barristers. I think the bar council have taken the view that in the majority of cases there would be too much scope for things to go wrong for the client, and for the barrister in terms of compromise to professional standards or encouragement to undertake litigation which (would be professional misconduct).

Hope that helps. It’s not an exhaustive response. Maybe I should do a blog post about it when I have more time…

I understand your point about Barristers, maybe they should be more accessable?

Jonathan