Bar Council Consults On Legal Aid Fee Sharing

by Robin Pilgrim, LawAndTax-News.com, London

26 January 2007

The UK's Bar Council on Wednesday unveiled for consultation significant new arrangements for handling the sharing of fees under the current round of legal aid reforms.

Changes put forward by the government earlier this month include:

• Fixed fees for work in police stations from October 2007;
• Revised standard fees for magistrates' court work will be introduced in major urban areas from April 2007;
• A revised graduated fees scheme for advocates in the Crown Court from April 2007;
• A litigators graduated fee schedule for Crown Court work from October 2007;
• A single graduated fee scheme in October 2008, which will combine fees for both Crown Court litigators and advocates;
• A Care Proceedings Graduated Fee scheme from October 2007 following a further consultation;
• A revised scheme for legal help for people facing family problems from October 2007 following a further consultation;
• The Tailored Fixed Fee Replacement scheme for solicitors and the not-for-profit sector providing civil legal help in October 2007; and
• Revised schemes for immigration and mental health work from October 2007.

The Bar Council's 'Fee Payment Protocol' is designed to deal with the fact that under the proposed reforms, more than one advocate will have to share a single legal aid payment.

The rules are designed to ensure that the fixed fee is fairly shared among senior and junior barristers.

The proposed protocol, which has been discussed with - and is an initiative supported by - the Department for Constitutional Affairs and the Legal Services Commission, requires barristers to adhere to certain rules concerning:

• Who is the instructed advocate in a case, and who, if anybody, is being led;
• The permissible grounds for returning a brief, and measures designed to ward off such an eventuality;
• The agreement of standard terms with instructing solicitors;
• The resolution of disputes;
• The structure of payments and accounting systems, and
• Tax.

Commenting on the draft protocol, Tim Dutton QC, Vice Chairman of the Bar Council, explained that:

"Publicly funded barristers need a payment system that is both fair and clear. At the same time, single fees must be shared on an equitable basis among advocates working together on a case."

"This draft protocol brings together significant strands of work in the fields of fixed fees, relations with solicitors and listing of cases in court."

"While a lot of effort has gone into getting the draft protocol right, I am still keen to ensure that practitioners in the front line, and their chambers administration teams, have an opportunity to pore over the detail, which is why we are issuing this for consultation."

He concluded:

"The Bar Council is determined to hold the Department to the start date of 30th April, so all responses are due in from the profession by 9th February."

Meanwhile, the Law Society last week condemned the proposed reforms, arguing that they will threaten access to justice by risking "irreparable" damage to the legal aid supplier base.

At a recently held Law Society Special General Meeting (SGM), around 400 solicitors voted unanimously in support of a motion critical of the government’s approach to the proposed reforms to legal aid.

Andrew Holroyd, Law Society Vice President announced that:

“Today’s SGM highlights the strength of feeling among solicitors about the current legal aid reforms. The Law Society wants the same result as all the solicitors who attended the meeting – to secure a sustainable future for legal aid and to protect vulnerable clients. The Society will continue to fight for that objective with all urgency."

“We continue to lobby intensively to secure a viable future for legal aid. The current proposals threaten an already economically fragile sector and so access to justice. We are working on behalf of legal aid solicitors to find a workable solution, but the current proposals are far from that.”

Recommended