The Criminal Bar Association (CBA) is going ahead with its threat to refuse to take on Very High Cost Cases (VHCC) from 2nd December, in response to the government’s plan to cut fees by 30% for new cases. Some solicitors are backing the Bar's action, while others are voicing concerns on whether this is the right issue to fight the government on.

 

CBA chairman, Nigel Lithman has called on the senior members of the Bar who represent clients in VHCC’s to refuse to accept new cases for the lower fees. A similar action against proposed cuts in fees in 2008 led to a u-turn from the last government on changes to VHCC’s. LAG believes Lithman is hoping the boycott will force a similar climb-down.

 

James Parry, a partner in a criminal defence firm in Liverpool and a Solicitor Advocate, told LAG, "Firms are backing the CBA. If we are asked to take-up the slack we will refuse to." Parry is behind the no-confidence motion against the Law Society leadership over their handling of negotiations with the government on the changes to criminal legal aid.

 

A prominent solicitor advocate, Joy Merriam, fears that the CBA’s action could backfire by focusing media attention on the relatively high level of pay in such cases, rather than the much more damaging cut of 17.5%, which she says hits “all the much lower paid work and fees for police station work, which will be cut by as much as 40% in some areas of the south east.” Merriam, who in October won the Law Society Excellence award, Solicitor Advocate of the Year, also believes that while individual solicitor firms are backing the Bar’s action by pledging that solicitor advocates will not pick-up the work, this will prove difficult for some firms to do due to “their contractual arrangements with the Legal Aid Agency.”

 

The first case caught by the barrister's strike action was reported in The Guardian. Defendants in a complex fraud case, due to be heard in April next year at Southwark Crown Court, cannot find barristers to represent them, (see Complex fraud trial threatened as barristers decline work at reduced rate, pub 14 Nov). According to the article, the judge in the case has said that the defendants will have to represent themselves if they cannot obtain counsel. Four of the eight defendants are represented by a solicitor advocate, who told the court that despite approaching 17 chambers he could not find any representatives for the other defendants.

 

LAG believes that advocates undertaking VHCC’s are still relatively well paid compared to the rest of the legal aid system, but a 30% cut is excessive, as are the other proposed cuts to criminal legal aid. LAG fears the damaging impact the reductions in fees will have on the availability and quality of criminal defence services. The government are doing this because they believe they can get away with it. We believe the CBA are right to fight back and should be supported.

 

Addendum 3rd December- Joy Merriam has requested that the following link to advice issued by the Law Society is added to this article-

 

http://www.lawsociety.org.uk/Advice/Articles/Advice-to-solicitors-where-counsel-ceases-to-act-in-crime-VHCC-matters/