Non-trial advocates will be excluded from higher court work by the quality assurance scheme for advocates (QASA), a leading solicitor advocate has warned.

Following publication of a second consultation on the controversial accreditation scheme, president of the Solicitors Association of Higher Court Advocates Jo Cooper said the scheme will have a ‘massive impact’ on all levels of advocate.

He said it will affect around 8,000 higher rights advocates who will ‘lose rights of audience if they fail to jump through the new accreditation hoops’.

In the higher courts, Cooper said the solicitors who are at risk of ‘being knocked out’ are those with diverse practices, especially those involved in litigation, and who choose not to do trials, or do so rarely.

‘So public law, civil and criminal non-trial advocates will be excluded. There will be large numbers of solicitors and barristers who will fail to make the starting line for this scheme,’ he said.

To conduct any hearing in the Crown court, Cooper says advocates will have to demonstrate that they have recent trial advocacy experience, which will mean that those who choose not to do trials will be excluded.

‘The message appears to be that if you don’t regularly conduct criminal trials your Crown court practice is over, because without trial advocacy you will not be permitted to take an evaluation.’

Many lawyers regularly conduct non-contested hearings in the Crown court, such as sentencing work, without conducting trials.

He said: ‘Jury trials account for about 12% of Crown court case disposals, and the trial hearings themselves are a very small percentage of actual listed hearings, yet under this scheme accredited trial specialists will have a monopoly not only of all trial advocacy at each level of accreditation, but of every hearing in every criminal case.

‘It is important to recognise that these people will be excluded not on quality grounds, but because the design of the scheme puts such a premium on recent and regular criminal trial work.’

At a consultation event on the scheme held earlier this year, Cooper said that of the 40 or so higher rights delegates who attended, only three said their current trial experience would enable them to meet the entry criteria for assessment at their chosen level for higher court advocacy, and 10 said they would be driven away from doing all Crown court advocacy.

Cooper said: ‘This is a massive redistribution of work, and will be a very significant factor in reducing both consumer choice and also opportunity for otherwise competent advocates within the advocacy market.’

He added: ‘It seems one of the first major interventions by the Legal Services Board in support of a liberalised market will be to decimate the fortunes of many solicitor advocates, perhaps even most, and drastically reduce competition for the bar.’

The consultation closes on 26 September and can be read on the SRA site.