How can the ever-widening gap between City earnings & legal aid funding be justified, asks Geoffrey Bindman QC
Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, the former Lord Chief Justice, has called on the government to act over the widening gulf between huge earnings at City law firms and the funding of public sector legal advice. Sir Rupert Jackson produced his first blockbuster report on civil litigation costs in December 2009. Yet his Herculean labours barely touched on the problem highlighted by Lord Thomas. It would be unfair to blame Sir Rupert. His task was not to examine disparities in lawyers’ pay but to review the system which enables one party (usually the successful one) to recover from another some or all of the costs of litigation.
His brief was limited to ‘recoverable’ costs. ‘Actual costs’—the amount the client owes his lawyer— were outside it. His remit did not include the fundamental question: why are some lawyers paid so much more than others?
The principle that the loser pays the winner’s costs
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