A legal aid firm was paid £1,387 less than a psychologist that the firm instructed to prepare a report for its vulnerable client, MPs have heard.

Giving evidence to the House of Commons justice select committee, solicitor Kerry Morgan, director of Manchester firm Morgan Brown Solicitors, highlighted examples illustrating why legal aid lawyers are unhappy about remuneration.

The committee heard that Morgan has a young client with learning difficulties charged with dangerous driving, theft of motor vehicle and burglary. Morgan instructed a psychologist, who was paid £1,591.20. Morgan’s firm was paid £204.92.

In another example, of a murder trial, she said: ‘It should have always been charged as a manslaughter. I spent 126 hours on that case. The prosecution is now suggesting they would accept manslaughter so it may well be that trial cracks. If it cracks, even though it’s fully prepared, the fee will be £3,226. If it runs to trial, it will be £5,078. The fee itself isn’t good enough for a murder case. But there’s no reason why I should be paid less simply because the prosecution decides to change the charge at the last minute. That’s the situation we’re facing. It’s impossible to run a business and calculate cash flow when you’re being faced with those sort of decisions.’

Morgan said the litigator fee should not be less because the charge changes or the case cracks.

The committee also heard from the Law Society’s head of justice, Richard Miller, who said the Bellamy review stated that solicitors were in a far worse position than barristers. ‘That’s why we just do not understand why it is the [Ministry of Justice] offered a greater proportion to barristers than it did to solicitors. The evidence was clear, it was solicitors who were in absolute immediate crisis and yet we only get 9% and barristers were given the full 15% that Sir Christopher [Bellamy] recommended.’

Should the government’s full response to the Bellamy review, expected this month, be unsatisfactory, the Law Society will advise members to shun criminal legal aid work.

Miller said: ‘If the government is not willing to pay what their own independent expert said is the minimum required for this work to be economically viable, it is really difficult to see how a solicitor could be meeting their obligation to run their firm in a proper business-like way doing criminal defence work. It’s really unfortunate that the choices the government is making here have forced us into the position of having to give that advice to our members. But their professional obligations are clear.’

 

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