To think people dont understand why there is a Barristers strike?

[jammywagonwheel]

Following an article about Criminal Barristers striking most of the readers comments seem to be about the fact some of them earn £64,000. The comments are mostly and that they are being entitled as they earn twicethe national wage and should not be paid more than a teacher. Newly qualified Barristers can earn as little as £12,000. I think people are failing to understand how difficult it is to recruit and retain Criminal Barristers when many will simply switch from Criminal law to private practice and the basis for our criminal justice system will be under under threat.

If the right to appropriate representation is no longer achieveable, what do we do?

AIBU to think most people dont undertand the impact this could have?

The idea that barristers set their own fees is correct but it isn’t an arbitrary figure that a barrister chooses for themself. There are industry approved benchmarks according to experience, case complexity, etc. There are all the back room staff to pay, insurance and office running costs to cover, as well as professional fees, tax and vat. So, the hourly rate paid by the client isn’t going into the barrister; they’ll probably get @35% if it’s actually paid, on which they have to pay income tax, vat etc. You need to remain competitive in terms of fees(only a few stellar practitioners can charge what they like!) Factor in a large client ( eg insurers, govt dept) setting their own rates in return for bulk work, the fact that legal costs are subject to review by the courts and can be knocked down (never up); that instructing solicitors expect barristers to take a reduction in their fees as a matter of course if the court reduces the solicitors costs, regardless of whether the barristers fees have been allowed in full; that barristers can’t sue for unpaid fees (most live in constant, crippling debt) so clients have no compunction about not paying - and can remain unpaid for years (I’m not exaggerating) and the killer? They have to pay tax on their invoices, not on what’s actually been paid by the client. So, they’ve done the work, paid their insurances, paid their staff, paid for the running of their chambers and paid tax on money they haven’t even received yet.
I appreciate this doesn’t necessarily relate to legal aid practitioners, but the basics apply to all. Anyone who thinks that’s all barristers are fat cats earning £££££ is deluded. The legal profession has made huge efforts in terms of inclusivity and equality over the past twenty years. That, and the future of the legal system, is what’s at stake.

Barristers doing legal aid do not get to set their fees - the fees are set by the government. They still have to pay overheads to chambers to cover renting a desk, the staff, the phones, all the rest of it. They also have to pay their own travel, fund their own maternity leave and pensions. And of course they have to pay tax - on their billings not their receipts (after a few years anyway). I sorted a case at the end of last year which had been outstanding for 8 years. I did not receive a penny in that time, although I did have to pay tax on it.

I sit in the criminal courts. The system is utterly broken. I frequently see juniors being entreated to wait around to act for Mr X free of charge because Mr X is volatile and off his meds and will end up in contempt if he acts for himself. People representing themselves when they barely have the ability to speak. Many of them have patchy English. A system that depends on people being convicted to "improve" clean up rates irrespective of whether they are guilty is one that is failing.
And yes, the majority do it because it's a vocation and we don't want to do anything else. But it cannot go on. And those of you sneering, shame on you.

Just wanted to make the point that, in the end the decimation of public services like this costs the general public MORE money - because people become burnt out, lose their houses, their mental health, costs the general public regardless of income level, more money because there are psychological casualties.

A strike is a terrible thing to have to choose to do, and clearly the last resort. I'm expecting a re-run of this thread for the teacher's strike.

For now, I'm unwatching this thread - good luck barristers with the strike.

Okay so the lower paid areas of engineering, where people do the job for the love not the money, pays £45k but other areas of engineering pay a lot more, it’s down to personal choice.

So similar to law - but with vastly different salary figures across the board. In fact not even comparative.

@Londonrach1 I really recognise your DH's pain. It also absolutely bites when people just assume 'solicitor, rich greedy bastard'.

One of my colleagues (the one who trained me actually) left last year to become a jobbing bricklayer working for a friend of his. He gets paid 3 times the daily rate that he was being paid as a qualified family solicitor. Another one of my friends who was a qualified conveyancer has left to be a receptionist at a veterinary practice.

I am almost out of it I think. I have a few clients whose cases are keeping me going because I have so much invested in getting a good outcome for them and want to see their cases to the end, but I am looking around at jobs. It cost me a fortune to retrain as a solicitor and I thought it would be worth it. It's not really so far.

No, they don't get paid at all while training, although better funded chambers fund pupillage. Getting a training contract with a big law firm as a solicitor is much much MUCH better paid though and you can still qualify as a solicitor advocate. Not sure why anyone bothers with the Bar.

So much needs reforming. I'd amalgamate the professions but the traditionalists wouldn't like that. We also need a much better regulator.

You beat me to it @Ducksinthebath I left the Bar a couple of years ago after 5 years practicing. It was simply costing me more money to go to work than I was earning.
I am in Ireland and we dont have chambers, when you qualify you work for 2 years as a devil (same as a pupil) but you dont get paid AT ALL!!
In your second year you might get a few small briefs from your master and can bill for those but you would be lucky to earn a couple of thousand in your second year. Your third year you are on your own, no chambers no work being sent your way, you hang around courts trying to make friends with solicitors in the hope they will brief you. For most criminal appearances you get between E50 - E60. You could be sitting the whole day in court for that.
I used to do family law, the average fee was E170 but unfortunately due to the long family law lists, I could attend court 4/5 times before the case was heard. The fee doesn't change, its just tough luck if you are there numerous times. That was almost always 4/5 full days (10am-5pm) in court waiting around - factor in lunch, travel, parking fees and child care fees, it cost me to go to work.
Sometimes a case would be adjourned to a date I wasnt available and I would have to hand the case over, that meant handing the full fee over to the new barrister and so you could have been in court a couple of times already that you now were not going to get paid for.

Some of the better paying cases in the Circuit Court would come along that you could bill a few thousand for but you would not get paid until 2/3 years after taking it on. That meant travelling to court, etc and incurring those costs long before you got a penny. Its not feasible unless you have some other income.

I loved the work and law is a vocation but you dont stay for the money. Even after 10 years E50k would be a fantastic salary at the Bar, for the intelligence, work ethic and time that you put into it, you would be far better off in a different industry.

I should add also that not only are you self employed but you cant advertise. The only means of promoting yourself and getting work is to take whatever cases come your way so you can appear in court in front of the local solicitors and hope you do a good job so when they need a barrister they might think of you.
I took loads of jobs that I knew I wouldn't get paid for just so I could stand up in court and get my face known.

I was a solicitor and my husband is a barrister. In his first full year of private practice he didn’t make enough money to pay income tax. He often had to work late into the night as he only got papers for cases at 5 or 6pm for a 9am appearance the following day. He ping pinged around all the magistrates courts in kent, paying his own fuel car tax etc and often without time to stop for lunch. The whole thing was miserable.

i was a solicitor and earned more than him, but still not big bucks (I’ve never worked for the big firms, just high street places).I’m done with it now, I can’t stand the long hours, crappy pay and poor attitudes from clients (but WHY won’t you answer your phone at 9pm on a Saturday? It’s unreasonable and I won’t pay your bill!). I had a full on breakdown a few years ago and now work in a school as a TA. The wages are still crappy but it’s zero stress and the kids make me happy.

*Getting a training contract with a big law firm as a solicitor is much much MUCH better paid though and you can still qualify as a solicitor advocate. Not sure why anyone bothers with the Bar.

So much needs reforming. I'd amalgamate the professions but the traditionalists wouldn't like that. We also need a much better regulator.*

It's difficult to get past the years of barristers being better than a solicitor. Though I worked for one of the first solicitors to become a QC and he was well respected, it doesn't seem to be the norm.

I remember being in a mediation with a very talented barrister a few years ago and she was going through pupilage applications. She said the quality of applicants was increasing every year and it was almost intimidating interviewing them. She wouldn't have made it past the application stage if she was applying these days. It's not just the academics, it's the overseas work experience at the UN or The Hague or the ECHR, not to mention the several languages they speak fluently and the voluntary work. Imagine winning a pupilage against candidates like that then struggling to pay your bills?

YABU.

It's absolutely right that there are controls on pay for prestigious, interesting work such as this which is funded by the public purse, but my understanding [such as it is] of the numbers is that things have gone much too far.

Newly minted barristers doing nothing but legal aid work should be earning at least the average pay in their area. More experienced juniors should be getting at least double that level. It ultimately won't be possible to recruit or especially retrain decent people otherwise.

The average person doesn't have a clue what a pittance legal aid rates are and just how badly they are paid compared to other public sector workers such as teachers or the police.

Another stellar performance by the tories. The system is utterly broken.

Yep. Expect to see stories about fat cats from the usual suspect right wing rags the longer this goes on.

A basic tenet of our legal system - that justice needs to be seen to be done - has been ever, ever so quietly kicked into the longest grass possible... Welcome to Dystopia
www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/expanded-remote-hearing-powers-come-into-force/5112935.article?utm_source=gazette_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Court+staff+ordered+to+inform+on+strikers+%7c+Judge+turns+down+19+appeals+%7c+Barristers%27+pay_06%2f28%2f2022

No it's not. That's precisely the point of the thread - people make all kind of assumptions based on job titles without knowing the full facts. Did you even RTFT?

The lawyers united will never be defeated

I don't understand. Are criminal barristers paid a different rate? Why did I have to pay my divorce barrister £1000 for a single day?

@Twillow Criminal barristers will be paid at Legal Aid rates. Your divorce barrister was charging privately

You know when the police say their but ‘if you don’t have legal representation this will be provided for you’? It’s those barristers.

Legal representation is a fundamental right if the state is prosecuting (every crime that goes to court) hence the issue of those barristers strike.

There are also divorce (family) barristers paid a pittance for legal aid work. People divorcing because of abuse can get legal aid. Parents who's children are the subject of a care order or supervision order by the local authority. There are a few others but funding has been cut to a lot of cases.

I was married to one. He only got paid when offered a court case and completing it. Often the fees took months to arrive. I worked full time. He did farm work and taught law at a college. Some weeks he had no cases. Others, one or two. He gave it up and transferred his skills to another job.