Criminal defence solicitors to stop taking on “loss-making” work as part of protests
updated on 10 June 2022
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Following a vote to join the criminal Bar in protest action, more than 100 criminal defence solicitors will stop taking on low-paid work in response to the government’s criminal legal aid reforms.
Law Society President I. Stephanie Boyce said this decision came as no surprise. She describes the action, not taking on “unsustainable amounts of loss-making work” as “a necessary element in running their businesses soundly”.
“The number of criminal legal aid firms has almost halved in the past 15 years because the work is no longer financially viable. Duty solicitors provide a vital public service attending police stations at all hours of the day and night for incredibly low rates of pay, and they are increasingly scarce in some parts of the country. The government’s failure to properly value criminal defence lawyers is driving this dedicated profession to extinction.”
The president of the London Criminal Courts Solicitors Association (LCCSA), Hesham Puri, told the Financial Times: “We have made it clear that we will no longer take in low-paid cases like burglaries and are not prepared to prop up this broken justice system.”
The lord chief justice warned earlier in May that the number of criminal barristers and solicitors will continue to fall if the ongoing legal aid dispute remains unresolved.
In December 2021, judge Sir Christopher Bellamy released an independent report that concluded the government needed to pump £135 million per year into legal aid fees to improve retention in the profession. According to the Financial Times, the government has promised a 15% raise in most of the legal aid budget, as per Bellamy’s report. However, the LCCSA and the criminal Bar are now both demanding a 25% raise in fees.
The protests continue as the government aims to reduce the backlog of crown court trials that built up during the pandemic from around 40,000 in March 2020 to a high of almost 60,000 by spring this year.
