A proposal to change the way duty solicitor slots are allocated would ensure that duty lawyers are no longer ‘overpaid’, a leading criminal solicitor has suggested.

The Ministry of Justice is understood to be considering altering the current arrangements, so that duty solicitor slots are allocated to firms based on their share of the criminal defence market, rather than the number of duty solicitors they employ.

Duty solicitor rotas are distributed every six months, and the present system has created what practitioners have described as a false market, similar to that seen in the football world. Duty solicitors can command a premium salary before the start of each new rota.

Tony Edwards, senior partner at London firm TV Edwards, said many duty solicitors were ‘substantially overpaid’ at the moment and earn far less for their firms than they are paid.

He said the move would be an effective means of reducing firms’ wage bills and enabling them to make the savings required of them by the shrinking legal aid budget.

However, Greg Powell, an executive officer of the London Criminal Courts Solicitors Association, said he had concerns about the new allocation method.

He said: ‘Duty solicitors earn their status by hard experience, and there’s no good reason why slots shouldn’t continue to be allocated based on the individuals in the firm.’

He added; ‘Allocation by market share would make many duty solicitors redundant if firms try to find cheaper solutions to providing quality advice in police stations and courts.’

The MoJ did not provide a comment.