Lawyers claim doing Legal Aid work pays less than benefits

The impact of cuts to the Legal Aid budget will hit the “most vulnerable people in society”, one of the country’s most senior legal figures has warned.

Richard Keen QC, Dean of the Faculty of Advocates, told MSPs yesterday that the public’s access to justice will suffer and said some advocates on the Legal Aid list make less than people on benefits.

“The very real impacts on the Legal Aid budget and the justice budget as a whole are going to impact on access to justice,” Mr Keen told Holyrood’s justice committee. “We cannot hope to maintain the present access to justice in its present form in the face of these cuts.”

The Legal Aid budget will fall by 14.3 per cent over the next three years from £154 million to £132m.

Committee convenor Christine Grahame suggested that advocates make “quite a lot of money” out of the Legal Aid system. About £23m was paid out in Legal Aid to Advocates and Solicitor Advocates last year, but Mr Keen insisted this work accounted for less than 10 per cent of the faculty’s income.

Mr Keen said: “Those carrying out work which is legally aided are carrying out some of the most important legal work which would be family-related, immigration-related or crime and for some of the most vulnerable people in our society.

“I can say that those carrying out that work in the faculty are essentially the lowest paid advocates in the country.

“The rates of pay for criminal Legal Aid are far lower than those which are paid for private work in this jurisdiction. There are many people who work for very marginal sums of money indeed in order to carry out Legal Aid work.”

He added: “I know there is a perception out there that we are the fat cats, but there are some very, very thin cats.”

The QC pointed out that advocates don’t get a salary and only get paid from the work they are able to generate.

“You will find people on the Legal Aid list earning sums of money that are lower than they would receive on state benefits,” he added. “They struggle on doing that and take on teaching at university.”

Oliver Adair, convener of the Law Society of Scotland’s criminal Legal Aid negotiating team, also reiterated the Society’s need to work with government and other groups on the proposals to introduce a new system of the contracting of firms in criminal cases, as well as how fee collections would be made should contributions to criminal Legal Aid be introduced.

Mr Adair said “We would be keen to engage with the Scottish Government further on the issue of contracting, and to understand why it sees the introduction of such a model necessary, as well as the detail on how it sees such a contracting model working.

“This would not be an insignificant change to a jurisdiction such as Scotland, and bearing in mind some of the difficulties that England and Wales have been faced with, we need to be clearer on what the government is intending to introduce.”

Graham Harding, a member of the Society’s civil Legal Aid negotiating team, also called for a rethink on proposed cuts to the civil Legal Aid budget, such as changing the eligibility threshold for civil Legal Aid to ensure that it is targeted on those who need it most.