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#Criminal lawyers asked to take 4% pay cut as legal aid reforms bite

Evidence has begun to emerge of the impact of legal aid cuts on criminal law firms, with internal memos from one large business showing that lawyers are being asked to take a 4% pay cut or face losing their jobs.

The effect of Ministry of Justice cutbacks and reorganisation of duty contracts covering police stations and magistrates courts could, according to leaders of the profession, lead to two-thirds of criminal solicitors losing their jobs.

Poorly paid paralegals are increasingly being hired to carry out criminal defence work, critics of the government’s plans warn, prompting fears of an increase in miscarriages of justice.

The warnings come as the consultation on reforming the system of duty lawyer contracts closes on Wednesday. Last month the MoJ lost a judicial review and was forced to re-run the consultation process.

The number of duty legal aid contracts is scheduled to fall from 1,600 to 525, although the MoJ hopes firms will share contracts.

Internal memos from a leading London law firm, TV Edwards, show that experienced solicitors specialising in criminal work have already had to accept a 4% cut in salary in order to keep their positions.

TV Edwards, based in east London, has argued that only economies of scale will make the legal aid system viable. But a message to staff from the head of the business, Anthony Edwards, shows how painful that process has become. The message anticipates “hundreds of criminal lawyers” in England and Wales losing their jobs.

Edwards told staff: “If you feel unable to agree to the reduction of salary the partners will consider terminating your contract of employment. The grounds for dismissal would be ‘some other substantial reason’ which includes the needs of the business.”

More paralegals are being taken on to cover work representing clients at police stations. In memos sent out earlier this year, he told employees that as a member of the “big firms group” the company would “win as long as the government holds its nerves”.

Edwards told the Guardian he had lost around a third of his staff due to the first round of 8.75% cuts in criminal legal aid imposed by the MoJ. “The second round [a further 8.75% cut] will simply not be sustainable,” he said.

“The use of more paralegals at the police station is not inevitably a threat to quality provided that they are trained and supervised, and as long as work is suitably allocated. I have been to the police station today because of the seriousness of [an] allegation. That would continue.

“Market changes are absolutely essential but the MoJ don’t have any awareness of the true market. [Their reforms] are not workable. We have to have a very large caseload to make it sustainable. I’m very unpopular in the profession because I believe that the number of firms need to be reduced.”

The London Criminal Courts Solicitors’ Association (LCCSA) fears as many as two-thirds of criminal solicitors could lose their jobs and that defendants will, in effect, lose the ability to chose their law firm. Its submissions to the consultation, which it forced the MoJ to rerun, states: “There will certainly be plenty of redundancies among qualified solicitors … Given the rates of pay under the new scheme, firms will not be recruiting qualified solicitors but unqualified paralegals.”

Nicola Hill, president of the LCCSA, said: “We’re seeing the effect of a policy which puts the cost of justice above its value. Criminal defence firms are only just keeping afloat after the wave of cuts last year.

“We’re seeing several [firms] laying off staff they can’t afford and employing cheaper, less trained paralegals. Paralegals already fulfill an important role in many legal aid firms but they aren’t solicitors and seeing them as solicitors on the cheap takes risks with standards of justice.”

Andrew Caplen, president of the Law Society, which represents solicitors across England and Wales, said: “It seems clear that the MoJ’s decision has been based on assumptions that we consider to be inaccurate and inadequately tested. Many warnings in both Otterburn and KPMG [reports commissioned by the department] do not appear to have been taken by the MoJ, with the result that they have reached some very concerning conclusions.

“There is a high risk that solicitors undertaking this essential work will struggle to stay afloat under the proposals, which may lead to the failure of the government to meet its legal obligations to provide duty solicitor services to all who ask for them.”

The MoJ disputes that the cuts will affect the quality of criminal representation in court but accepts that some degree of “consolidation” in the legal profession is inevitable. It said: “We are committed to continuing reform of the criminal legal aid system and have engaged constructively and consistently with lawyers throughout the process. Legal aid must become more sustainable for those who need it, those who provide legal services as part of it and for the taxpayer, who ultimately pays for it.”

“This further consultation on the economic reports which contribute to decisions on the number of duty work contracts closes at midnight on Wednesday. We will carefully consider the consultation responses and then take a decision on the number of contracts.”