Cost cutting + adviocate monitoring in the criminal courts
Discussion
Jonleeper said:
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I am not unhappy to pay £120 per hour when I believe that I am actually getting that time devoted to my case and value is being added. Recently I got sight of a legal bill for one of my soldiers; complete with the documentation that went with it. There were a number of charges that were just ridiculous and obviously only put in to bump up the cost of the case. The best example of this is the fee for writing a letter. Now I understand that nothing in this life is free and that letters are an important part of the process but what I find incredible is that a letter that states “thank you for your letter dated xx xxx 2013. It has been received and a response will be forthcoming in due course.” is billed at £80 as that we the standard basic fee for a letter! There has been no legal thought put in, it does not advance the case in any way and will have taken a secretary 5 minutes to write (if that) but still commands a £80 fee! It is this that I believe needs addressing not the basic hourly rate.
I agree that the the billing practices of some lawyers have become indefensible. i welcome some of the new civil costs rules, but they are arguably risking a baby/bathwater faff, as is often the case with top down reforms. I am not unhappy to pay £120 per hour when I believe that I am actually getting that time devoted to my case and value is being added. Recently I got sight of a legal bill for one of my soldiers; complete with the documentation that went with it. There were a number of charges that were just ridiculous and obviously only put in to bump up the cost of the case. The best example of this is the fee for writing a letter. Now I understand that nothing in this life is free and that letters are an important part of the process but what I find incredible is that a letter that states “thank you for your letter dated xx xxx 2013. It has been received and a response will be forthcoming in due course.” is billed at £80 as that we the standard basic fee for a letter! There has been no legal thought put in, it does not advance the case in any way and will have taken a secretary 5 minutes to write (if that) but still commands a £80 fee! It is this that I believe needs addressing not the basic hourly rate.
As for the criminal justice system, a better approach, I think, would not be to set an an arbitrary target figure for how much a case should cost, without regard to its individual features. In any event, standard fees paid by the State to either side should be set by reference to real world expenses. At present, leaving aside a lucky few who get big fees on legal aid, many legal aid lawyers are struggling to stay profitable at all on the rates paid. Another problem is that some Courts are becoming clogged up by litigants in person, unable to afford lawyers or obtain legal aid, who tend to slow things down and multiply the volume of appeals.
On a related but slightly different topic, meanwhile there is a danger of the recently meritocratic legal profession becoming once again the preserve of the posh, as the costs of training are sky rocketing. When my first Head of Chambers started at the Bar after Harrow, Cambridge, and the Guards in the 1950s, you had to have a private income in order to survive the first few years. When I started in the 1980s, State educated, formerly working class blokes like me were getting in, as were an increasing number of women, and a few non white people. This trend continued until recently, and we still recruit kids from Council House backgrounds, but increasingly we are again seeing a predominance of applicants who are privately educated and/or being supported by mum and dad, with other kids not applying to us as much as they used to.
Edited by anonymous-user on Tuesday 26th March 13:11
carreauchompeur said:
Tallbutbuxomly said:
Hah! You think this is an issue wait till next year when the new process kicks in at HMPS.
Utterly insane beyond words. This stupidity will look like the best idea ever.
Go on, spill... Utterly insane beyond words. This stupidity will look like the best idea ever.
Edited by Tallbutbuxomly on Tuesday 26th March 22:00
Deva Link said:
Tallbutbuxomly said:
All I can say is that deaths in custody is going to climb rapidly as are attacks on staff and no doubt we will also sadly see the first DOD.
Will Daily Mail readers care?Breadvan72 said:
On a related but slightly different topic, meanwhile there is a danger of the recently meritocratic legal profession becoming once again the preserve of the posh, as the costs of training are sky rocketing. When my first Head of Chambers started at the Bar after Harrow, Cambridge, and the Guards in the 1950s, you had to have a private income in order to survive the first few years. When I started in the 1980s, State educated, formerly working class blokes like me were getting in, as were an increasing number of women, and a few non white people. This trend continued until recently, and we still recruit kids from Council House backgrounds, but increasingly we are again seeing a predominance of applicants who are privately educated and/or being supported by mum and dad, with other kids not applying to us as much as they used to.
I agree, but it is not just the cost of training. The starting point is the increasing cost of tertiary education. Then add on the cost of training (including, if need be, the cost of a law conversion course). That ante then gets bet on your ability to (a) secure a pupillage and (b) get taken on at the end of it. If you can secure (a) and (b) and aren't stuck doing publicly funded work, you might just end up making a go of it. If you can only secure (a), chances are you'll be left with a bucket of debt and a search for a job in a career path that will be your plan B. But if you can't secure (a) or (b), you're in real financial trouble - and it's that spectre that is driving talented but not well off people away. It's not a welcome development at all. Edited by anonymous-user on Tuesday 26th March 13:11
For many years there has been a school of thought at the Treasury that advocacy requires no more skill than being able to talk. If only that were true...
Edited by anonymous-user on Tuesday 26th March 22:51
University costs are becoming a real deterrent, especially to bright kids from relatively poor families. Russell Group Universities are becoming more and more solidly middle to upper middle class with each passing year. New Labour and the Tories between them seem intent on halting or even reversing social mobility. This has, I think, nothing to do with grammar schools, as even Cameron knows that the grammar schools helped a few whilst abandoning many to scrapheap secondary mods.
I went from a comprehensive school to an elite university, with fees paid and a full grant. The fees and grant have been repaid many times over in higher rate taxes. The inability of the Government to see that the country needs to invest in its future, through high quality university education, made available for free or at a modest cost to all who are properly qualified (that does not have to mean half the population) is more than a bit depressing. Elitist? Yes, but every society needs elites, and good meritocratic elites can help drive forward economic and social progress.
I went from a comprehensive school to an elite university, with fees paid and a full grant. The fees and grant have been repaid many times over in higher rate taxes. The inability of the Government to see that the country needs to invest in its future, through high quality university education, made available for free or at a modest cost to all who are properly qualified (that does not have to mean half the population) is more than a bit depressing. Elitist? Yes, but every society needs elites, and good meritocratic elites can help drive forward economic and social progress.
Edited by anonymous-user on Sunday 21st September 10:16
Quality of degrees and students is key. Letting half the population go simply because they managed a couple of A levels is not workable...
It's a real shame that some very bright young people will undoubtedly be put off by the staggering costs now. Even with all this "It's only a loan..." b
ks. My student loan was only £12,000 and that has been an albatross round my neck for the last 10 years (Paid off 2011)
It's a real shame that some very bright young people will undoubtedly be put off by the staggering costs now. Even with all this "It's only a loan..." b
ks. My student loan was only £12,000 and that has been an albatross round my neck for the last 10 years (Paid off 2011)Breadvan72 said:
Russell Group Universities are becoming more and solidly more middle to upper middle class with each passing year.
It's 10 & 12 years (how time flies ) since my state school educated kids started at Nottingham and Birmingham and they both felt like token northerners. None, literally none, of the people they made and stayed friends with went to state schools.Breadvan72 said:
No doubt, but show me a breakdown of their costs and compare those with the costs of a law firm. Also, what is wrong with people who have trained hard making a decent market based profit from the sale of their skills? I do not begrudge paying a skilled mechanic £60 an hour to fix my car. I do not begrudge paying my doctor £120 an hour. I do not begrudge paying my plumber £80 an hour. What is this thing about people having to work for buttons?
Anyone who works for the government is being asked to work for buttons. You can still ask for as much as you want from the private sector.You will also run into the same trap us doctors did. Trying to convince joe public that there is a difference between profit and turnover is almost impossible.
There were a number of times when I explained this to patients after the DailyMail printed that every doctor was earning a quarter of a million a year, some years back. The patients were truly aghast when I mentioned the word profit and thought it was immoral for a doctor to profit from his patients. I actually received a complaint letter from a patient which was copied to his MP.
The government won the publicity campaign against doctors, and have reduced the amount they pay us by about 10% per year over the past five years.
I suspect the legal profession have been on the target list for a while.
julian64 said:
I suspect the legal profession have been on the target list for a while.
We have been and have been chipped away at for a considerable number of years.I have to go and earn some money now but will be reading the whole of this topic later tonight.
Legal Aid is one part of the attack on the profession. The successful, sustained and often divisive denigration of our value is another. The introduction of less trained and regulated parties to deal with the same tasks yet another.
I for one saw the writing on that wall before I even qualified (Admitted to the Roll 11 years ago today!) and went down the route I have in terms of location and specialisation as few of my Clients are overly concerned about cost, if they were then they would be using some ‘cross your fingers and hope’ bucket shop in the first place.
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