Re: Richard must be on Holiday


"tim....." <tims_new_home@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:6hv8a3Fobif9U1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Webmanager_CritEst" <webmanager@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:abe05f72-82e1-4ae0-9923-2917fd720635@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On Aug 30, 11:41 pm, "Steve Walker" <spam-t...@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
tim..... wrote:
> This looks like it's going to be fun:

>http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/article4636694.ece

> "The trial of a teenager accused of murdering the Liverpool schoolboy
> Rhys Jones could be delayed after he was left without a senior
> barrister because of a government limit on legal aid.
> ....."

"The Government's Legal Services Commission has classed the trial as a Very
High Costs Case, which means that it can involve only solicitors and
barristers who have joined a panel that has accepted fixed-rate pay starting
at £70 an hour for a junior and £91 for a QC. Two QCs and 108 other
barristers out of 2,300 in England and Wales have signed up to the
agreement."

I assume the two scab QC's are government lackeys, members or sympathisers?
Presumably Cherie Blair is one of them, so she could go back to her home
town and show 'em how it's done....

£91/hour ... too little is it?

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For payment *before* expenses to a freelancer at the top of his profession that takes many years of study to qualify for, it's miles away.

I imagine that a QC has to call on several people to help him prepared each time he takes on a case and these people have to be paid out of his 91 pounds.

As a comparison, I know of people a few years out of college, with a couple of year's experience in a particular software system, who have bugger all ongoing expenses, that can demand 60ph (and get it without a murmur)

tim


A relevant comparison when trying to attract barristers to do this class of work is what they can get doing ordinary private-paying work.

I can assure you that in commercial chancery work a junior of, say, ten years' call will get a LOT more than £91 ph for a fairly routine case.

If you want good lawyers to do criminal defence work (and I suggest that we SHOULD want that) then pay the market rate.

Andrew McGee

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