The justice minister Jonathan Djanogly has provided details of the barristers and law firms paid the most from legal aid over the last year, ahead of the publication of the bill setting out the governments planned legal aid cuts.

The figures prompted the Law Society to repeat its call for the government to look at alternative ways of saving the required £350m without cutting the £2.1bn annual legal aid budget.

It suggested a £250,000 cap on the amount that solicitors or barristers could earn in any year from publicly funded cases.

Mechanisms for achieving this would include aligning QCs and leading juniors fees at the rate paid to leading juniors, and reducing the £2310 ‘event rate’ paid to QCs in family cases to attend certain case meetings regardless of their length.

Djanogly provided the figures for the highest paid barristers and firms in response to a question tabled in the House of Commons in March 2011 by Conservative MP Stewart Jackson.

London firm Duncan Lewis topped the table for the firm paid the most from the community legal service budget. It received £15,324,024, ahead of London firm Blavo & Co, which received £5,994,951 and third-placed northern firm Stephensons, which got £5,770,453.

National firm Tuckers was the highest paid criminal legal aid firm, receiving £10,293,997. London firm EBR Attridge was in second place earning £6,870,842, followed by midlands firm The Johnson Partnership with £6,765,248.

Leonard Smith QC, of London’s Carmelite Chambers, was the highest-earning criminal barrister, receiving £841,960. Family barrister Paul M Storey QC, of London’s 29 Bedford Row, received the most from the community legal aid fund, receiving £582,374.

The figures represent payments made in the financial year 2009/10, and include sums for VAT and disbursements incurred.

The Ministry of Justice pointed out that the sums include work done in previous years and that overall payments may have been increased by one exceptional case lasting a number of years.

A Law Society spokesman said the figures paid to solicitors merely represents the turnover of businesses that employ large numbers of people and carry out high volumes of work, and merely confirms that the firms listed are the largest legal aid providers.

Its chief executive Des Hudson pointed out that the average legal aid lawyer earns £25,000 a year.

Bar chair Peter Lodder QC said: ‘This list shows the fees received by those at the very top of their profession. However, it does not take into account that these are payments for work which may have been carried out over a number of years; that in some cases other barristers will have carried out some of the work, for which they will have to be paid from this sum; nor the associated overhead costs of being self-employed.’

He added: ‘The vast majority of publicly-funded barristers are struggling to provide a quality service for relatively low levels of remuneration, and have not seen their fees increase for years and are now facing further cuts.’

Meanwhile, the Leader of the House of Commons said last week that the much-anticipated bill setting out the government’s reforms, which he called the Legal Aid and Sentencing Bill, will be introduced ‘shortly’.

Having been expected for the last couple of weeks, it now seems likely that it will be published before the end of this week, with some sources suggesting it will be on Tuesday.