The day our courts became politicised?

[WetAugust]

Judge halts trial because defendants had not obtained suitable legal representation, supposedly because legal aid cuts mean public money is no longer available to buy the services of the highly qualified lawyers that would have been required to defend the case.

Cameron's QC brother had bee representing them prior to the halt of the trial.

Surely this puts the legal profession and the Government at loggerheads?

Who will they use instead? None of this sounds workable.

Goodness knows, probably no-one. Parties are, as far as I can see, being widely encouraged to get social work instead of medical reports, so maybe the social workers will be doing the diagnosis, prognosis and risk assessment in cases of severe mental illness, for example? Sounds interesting to say the least. I definitely foresee family cases going without necessary medical evidence...and consequent injustice both for children and families.

It seems as though the government is not applying an even hand to cost saving. I was reading an article about care home fraud on the rise, there isn't the impetus to investigate these cases because they are the Tories core voters.

When the inevitable moral outrage happens I am sure your profession will be in the firing line.

My profession, do you mean?

Yes,thedudesmummy I can see it now, highly trained professionals being lambasted in the press for not taking cases paying peanuts.

I'm sure you are right, depressingly.

If my bank manager was happy with me having no money left to pay my bills after I have paid tax, expenses and insurances out of my fees, then I might be able to consider carrying on with legal aid cases....unfortunately he doesn't seem amenable...

Yes, it really gets my goat the way that the press talks, for example, about barristers getting vast sums, without understanding that what they receive is a fee not a salary, and out of that they have to pay a myriad of expenses as well as tax. And the same thing applies to expert witnesses, although our situation has not yet been picked up as much in the press.

Yes, I noticed that careful phrasing in the government press releases. The slightly unnatural "barristers receive..." not "barristers make...".

Nicely misleading.

And when the government releases details of the money paid to legal aid lawyers, they somehow never mention that it could be payments for several years' work; nor do they ever relate it to the size of the firm - a largish firm doing a lot of legal aid work will inevitably receive more than a one man band, but it doesn't mean that any individual lawyer within the larger firm gets paid a penny more than the ones in the small firm.

I heard the other day about a firm doing mental health and crime work which is having to close down. One of the partners received no pay for five months because there was barely enough money coming in to pay employees' salaries.

Exactly. For example: A report that : Barristers "receive £100k" for a "case". Well a "case" could be half an hour in the magistrate's court, or could comprise several highly qualified people's full-time work over months or years. It's as meaningless as being outraged because you paid £250k for "a house" but making mention of whether it's a one-roomed shack or a twelve-bedroom mansion....

should have said not making mention, sorry!