High earners list published

Leading fraud silk Charles Salmon QC, of 2 Hare Court, has topped the list of high earners for barristers in criminal legal aid, with earnings of more than £1m.

In the civil legal aid category, Simon Hirst earned £442,000, family barrister Michael Keehan QC, of St Ive’s Chambers, earned £372,000, family barrister Alison Ball QC, of 1 Garden Court, earned £371,000 and Paul Storey QC earned £354,000.

Criminal barristers Howard Godfrey QC, of 2 Bedford Row, and David Whitehouse QC, of 3 Raymond Buildings, earned £988,000 and £959,000 respectively, according to Ministry of Justice figures for the year ending 31 March 2008.

Among firms, criminal law firm Tuckers earned £9.3m, considerably more than the second highest-earning firm, The Johnson partnership, at £6.2m, and, in third and fourth place, Forbes Solicitors with £4.6m and Kaim Todner with £4.2m. In the civil category, London firm Duncan Lewis earned £6.2m last year, Switalskis came second with £4.6m and Stephensons third with £4.3m.

A Bar Council spokesperson said: “The payments to barristers listed by the Ministry of Justice all include VAT and make no allowance for expenses of up to 30%.

“They were paid under the old scheme where the court assessed the appropriate fee at the end of a case. After assessment by the court, each of the payments was specifically approved by the Legal Services Commission. Under the new system for Very High Cost Cases scheme, fees paid are very much less.

“Even under the old system payments on this scale were never typical. Of the 10 barristers named, the top five and one of the remainder were all instructed to act for different defendants in the prosecution of Terry Adams by the Serious and Organised Crime Office. This was one of the biggest criminal cases ever mounted, finally concluding in March 2007. At least one of the QCs had been briefed as early as July 2003. The payments therefore all cover several years of work. They are not annual payments or gross payments, and to present them as in any way typical would be highly misleading.”