Solicitors fed up of being treated as 'second fiddle' to barrister profession

Two leading solicitors have criticised the Lord Chancellor and the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) for showing favouritism to the Bar to the detriment of solicitors.

The outgoing chair of the Solicitors' Association of Higher Courts Advocates (SAHCA) has argued that the MoJ's consultation on enhancing the quality of criminal advocacy has only been launched after the justice secretary had his 'ear bent' by the barrister profession.

In a strongly worded open letter, Shawn Williams of Stevens Solicitors blasted the consultation as a thinly veiled attack on solicitor advocates.

The very high cost case panel advocate said that, far from being an attempt to promote competition, the exercise was part of a strategy to impose 'artificial restraints' on the client selection of advocates, the effect of which would be to 'restrict rather than enhance client choice'.

In his the three-page letter, Williams suggested that large parts of the consultation were superfluous in light of the QASA scheme.

What was left, he said, amounted to a transparent attempt to undermine the successes solicitor advocates had achieved since the provision of advocacy services were liberalised.

This is seen most starkly, he added, in proposals to restrict the ability of law firms to instruct advocates that they employ from representing their clients - a proposal which, in the view of SAHCA, members can only benefit the independent Bar.

SAHCA see the present consultation as part of a wider campaign to undermine and discredit solicitor advocacy, coming as it does at a time when an ever-increasing percentage of the public are choosing to instruct solicitor advocates over the Bar.

Williams said the consultation was an attempt to re-assert the Bar's historic monopoly in the face of competition from solicitor advocates, and that the free market was 'surely the ultimate arbiter of quality. If you're good you get business, if you're not you don't'.

Meanwhile, president of the London Criminal Courts Solicitors' Association (LCCSA), Jonathan Black, has suggested the ministry's adoption of separate approaches to advocates' (AGFS) and litigators' graduated fee schemes (LGFS) could be construed as favouritism for the Bar.

The Bar Council has submitted that advocacy fees be ring-fenced from the legal aid budget - at a time when the LGFs is being cut - and submitted a 'completely re-drawn' AGFs to the ministry to reward barristers' skill, experience, and responsibility in court.

Making reference to the redesigned scheme at the 30th Annual Bar Conference, chairman of the Bar Alistair MacDonald QC said: 'It is a superb piece of work, taking a cogent approach to the relevant principles and closely woven with the detail so necessary to provide credibility in the eyes of the MoJ.'

Writing on the LCCSA website, however, Black said: 'There cannot be any rational reason for treating one set of fees differently… If the MoJ is genuinely concerned about protecting and rewarding quality advocacy, they must expand that mind set to include rewards for quality litigation.'

The BSB Solicitors partner continued: 'We have heard no explanation from the MoJ as to why they might adopt separate approaches to AGFS and LGFS. Without an explanation it is tempting to conclude that some form of protectionism and favouritism is being afforded the Bar which is not being afforded to solicitors.'

Black added that the profession cannot sit back as proposals to increase barristers' fees are negotiated and solicitors' are, once again, cut, or while attempts are underway to prevent solicitors from conducting advocacy.

'Let us not be caught fiddling while Rome burns,' he concluded.

John van der Luit-Drummond is deputy editor for Solicitors Journal
john.vanderluit@solicitorsjournal.co.uk | @JvdLD