The court system is at risk of a crisis as criminal barristers quit to chase higher pay, the chairman of the Criminal Bar Association (CBA) has warned.
Mary Prior KC, the chairman of the CBA, said young criminal barristers who entered the profession out of a feeling of duty were increasingly being lured away by more lucrative jobs in corporate law.
Ms Prior said: “The problem is that the enthusiasm and desire for public service wears off within a couple of years. At that stage, our young criminal barristers move into better paying and less traumatic work, which enables them to maintain some form of work-life balance.”
The situation is now contributing to a shortage of criminal barristers working in Britain’s criminal justice system, which is making the Crown Court backlog worse.
Britain’s Crown Courts are currently facing a backlog of more than 73,000 cases, as the result of a major build-up during Covid.
Ms Prior said: “The number of defendants and victims of crime who need legal representation grows by the week and the number of cases which have to be adjourned because we cannot find a barrister to conduct a trial is growing.”
Pay for commercial barristers has risen sharply in recent years as a result of a battle for talent between British and American law firms.
Leading commercial chambers including Gray’s Inn Tax Chambers and Gough Square Chambers now offer pupilages – the one-year, vocational training barristers must complete to qualify – with annual pay worth up to £100,000 a year, according to industry blog Legal Cheek.
By contrast, criminal barristers, who rely on legal aid fees for the vast majority of their earnings, have seen their pay stagnate. Most trainee barristers are paid the minimum required by the Bar Standards Board, which amounts to £24,203 if they work in chambers in London, or £22,019 anywhere else in the UK.
Christopher Clark, a legal sector recruiter, said: “Criminal barrister pay has continued to decline since legal aid was cut, with swathes of barristers having moved to City law firms for significant increases in compensation.”
Lower pay for criminal barristers has so far failed to deter trainees from taking up pupilages, even if many of those who complete training later switch into other areas.
Demand for criminal barrister training is so high that the Inns of Court College of Advocacy (ICCA), which runs one of the most popular bar training courses, is even offering discounts to trainees who defer their studies.
ICCA said those willing to defer will be eligible to receive a 33pc discount on the more than £12,000 fees charged to those completing their advocacy exam.