The report, 'System overload: a report into family legal aid', published this week, is based on research with 100 family legal aid barristers. It portrays a group of dedicated practitioners routinely working 70-hour weeks yet sometimes struggling to pay their bills as the fees earned are worth approximately half of what they were in 1996.
One barrister who has worked in the area for more then ten years described how she made £7 per hour for a piece of work that took her 15 hours. Another barrister said working ‘more hours for less money’ was ‘the only way we can keep the show on the road, in other words to safeguard the children who are at the heart of everything we do’.
Courts often lack heating, wheelchair access, drinking water or sinks with working taps. According to one barrister, the ’terrible’ condition of the court estate ‘feels quite reflective of how people are feeling’.
Bar Council chair Barbara Mills KC said: ‘The people working within the system are collapsing and this cannot be ignored or tolerated.
‘The very real impact the financial and systemic pressure legal aid work is having on barristers’ health and wellbeing, made plain in this report, is extremely alarming. It is unacceptable that some family barristers are unable to support themselves and are being driven away from the profession at a time when legal aid representation is in desperate need.’
Mills called for an increase in legal aid rates, investment in the court estate and a government commitment to updating the fee schemes through an independent fee review body.
James Roberts KC, chair of the Family Law Bar Association, said the report ‘will make depressing reading for barristers working under the legal aid schemes but perhaps more importantly for their clients who are among the most vulnerable in our society.
‘Barristers in this field are effectively being paid half as much as they were in 1996 for twice the work. This is unsustainable.’
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