New Post has been published on The Rakyat Post
New Post has been published on http://www.therakyatpost.com/business/2014/09/26/barristas-earn-lawyers/
Barristas earn more than lawyers
For the more than 15,000 trial lawyers in England and Wales — better known as barristers — the days of plentiful work and rewarding fees are on the wane.
Government cuts to legal aid are putting pressure on their income and new competitors are eating into their work.
The changes are occurring as the number of barristers reaches an all-time high with more than four times as many members of the profession as 40 years ago, according to Bar Council statistics.
Barristers who aspire to represent the accused as fictional criminal defender Horace Rumpole did in the 1980s television series Rumpole of the Bailey face the worst prospects.
The gruff-voiced, poetry-quoting, claret-drinking barrister whose duty was to “take on anyone in trouble, no matter how repellent they may be” might struggle to find work today.
“The survival of Rumpole is absolutely threatened,” says Alexander Deane, 35, who left his job as a barrister in 2009 and now works in public relations. “Increasingly there’s a sense of desperation at the criminal bar.”
As a result, barristers are consolidating their offices through defections and mergers. Some are compensating with international work or by using new methods to find clients.
Others have left the profession or moved to positions as solicitors, lawyers who generally don’t argue in court.
Salaries for trainee criminal barristers range from £12,000 (RM63,700) to about £60,000 during their first year, according to advertised vacancies on the Pupillage Gateway website.
Junior criminal law barrister James Jackson said he has been paid an average of about £21,000 a year during his first three years in practice.
That’s less than some coffee makers earn for a 48-hour week. High-end London brasserie Colbert is seeking a barista and will pay the successful candidate as much as £22,500 a year including tips, recruiter Oliver Smith said.
Self-employed barristers work an average of 51 hours a week, according to a 2013 report for the Bar Council and Bar Standards Board.
Deane earned about £35,000, before taxes, rent and travel expenses, after four years in practice.
Self-employed barristers, who comprise four-fifths of the practice, are finding the climate particularly tough. One reason is supply.
Their ranks have swelled from just under 3,000 in 1972 to 12,675 in 2012, according to statistics provided by the Bar Council in London.
“We have too many barristers so the work has to be spread around,” says Ivan Lawrence, 77, a former member of parliament and barrister who has defended gangsters, murderers and a Bosnian war criminal during his 52-year career.
Making matters worse are cuts to the government’s £1.7 billion legal aid budget.
The number of new family law and social welfare cases funded by legal aid dropped from more than 200,000 each in 2012-13 to about 50,000 in 2013-14, says Nicholas Lavender, a barrister who is chairman of the Bar Council in London.
Fees for criminal cases have fallen 37% when adjusted for inflation since 2007, he says.
The government had planned additional cuts until hundreds of solicitors and barristers, dressed in black robes and wigs, went on strike and demonstrated outside parliament twice this year.
A junior, or mid-career, criminal barrister may receive as little as £46 for a court appearance that can involve much of a day, Lawrence said.
Representing a client in a robbery — including preparation, pre-trial hearings and as many as two days of trial — brings them about £900, Lavender says.
“You’re doing very difficult work for very little money,” says Victoria Pigott, a criminal barrister who left a London chambers 16 months after completing her training to re-qualify as a solicitor in 2006.
“I didn’t see it as a business model that worked — sending several counsel to the same court to each do a five-minute hearing.”
There are rewards for those who stick with the profession. The six highest paid criminal barristers received £500,000 to £700,000 of legal aid fees each in 2012-13, according to Ministry of Justice figures.
Barristers in civil or commercial lawsuits can make even more.
Solicitors, who traditionally hired barristers to advocate for their clients in court, gained more freedom to argue before judges in 1994.
Today about 6,500 of the country’s 131,000 practising solicitors have those rights, according to the Solicitors Regulation Authority.
“The reality is there just isn’t the work because it’s being retained in-house by the solicitors,” said Sarah Clark, a criminal barrister who now works as counsel to a trade group.
New legal service providers such as Co-Operative Legal Services Ltd are also presenting competition. Co-Operative bulk-buys the services of barristers and resells them. This approach rankles some veteran trial lawyers.
“You can’t just package up what we do like it’s a Tesco commodity,” Lawrence says, referring to the UK supermarket giant.
“You can’t treat the law as a commodity any more than you can treat medicine as a commodity.”
Entry-level barristers like Jackson, who decided to become a criminal barrister when he was 18, are considering alternatives.
Jackson now represents accused criminals in and around London and several defendants at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague. At 28, he lives with his parents in north London.
“I have no choice,” says Jackson. “I physically could not afford to rent in London, even sharing.”
He can’t afford a new suit, replaced his 11-year-old overcoat with a second-hand one left by a departing barrister and doesn’t update his £275 law book as often as he should.
He is considering taking a part-time job serving drinks on trains during weekends to supplement his income. The employee discount would defray the cost of commuting to courthouses outside London on weekdays, too.
Jackson turns 30 in 18 months and by then will decide whether to remain a self-employed barrister. He loves his job, yet he questions its financial sustainability.
“Do I want to be living a hand-to-mouth existence when I’m 35?” he says.
“People may think it’s an interesting job. You can tell interesting stories at dinner parties, but that doesn’t help pay the rent.”
