BARRISTERS SEEK HIGHER FEES

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27010, 9 April 1953, Page 11

BARRISTERS SEEK HIGHER FEES

BRITISH COMPLAINTS LEGAL AID FOR POOR LITIGANTS * (From the London Correspondent of “The Press") LONDON, March 27. The law, with its prospect of fame and fortune, always seemed a lucrative profession to many of Britain’s most intelligent young men. Only a few of the best Queen’s Counsel ever achieve a five-figure income, but each year hundreds of young barristers start their careers with the rich rewards available to the few firmly fixed in mind. Just how “lucrative” a career at the criminal bar -can be was illustrated this week during the summing up of an involved conspiracy trial which has lasted for 37 days in the Old Bailey. The Judge, Mr Justice Gl'yn-Jones, told jurors that some of the jurymen were being paid more for listening to the case than were eight of the defending counsel, who were appearing for a group of accused under the provision of the Poor Persons’ Defence Act. One Queen’s Counsel, who was defending on a legal aid certificate, would be paid £l5 15s for the long trial—the longest in the history of the Old Bailey—and junior barristers would receive a maximum fee of £lO 10s for more than two months’ work. In England jurors can be paid from 5s to £1 for their services if they can prove loss of wages. One member of the jury in the conspiracy case, a carpenter, has alreqjdy earned £46 5s for his services—nearly three times the amount to be paid to the Queen’s Counsel. “Justice on the Cheap” Barristers in Britain have been complaining for years about “justice on the cheap.” They claim that they are receiving miserable fees, last fixed in 1933, from the State when they are called on to defend persons without means in Court. The General Council of the Bar, the governing committee of the Inns of Court, has supported its members claims for higher fees. It stated recently that it considered it was not in the public interest that the State should seek to secure the administration of justice “on the cheap.” Serious hardship had been caused to many barristers who had undertaken to defend poor prisoners at the ridiculously low rates of remuneration fixed by the act, it said.

In many cases, barristers have incurred substantial losses as well. In one instance, a “home-work” swindle trial held at Norfolk last year, the barristers spent about four weeks evolving the defence submissions and defending the accused in Court. Their outof Pocket expenses, according to the Bar Council, were about four times the fees they were paid by the State. Under the scale fixed, the most a Queen’s Counsel can earn under a legal aid certificate is 15 guineas. A normal fee for a junior barrister defending a poor prisoner is three guineas, with five guineas for a leading counsel. The Home Secretary (Sir David Maxwell Fyfe)- is at present considering the barristers’ claims for increased fees.