The Secret Barrister: Stories of the Law and How It's Broken

by The Secret Barrister

What we have here, the public was solemnly told by ministers, represents the most expensive and generous legal aid system anywhere in the world. And it’s getting more and more expensive. Fat-cat solicitors and swaggering ruddy-nosed barristers are gorging on taxpayer cream, cackling as they speed away from court in their open-top BMWs to quaff legally aided Dom Pérignon 1966 after a half-day spent pulling the wool over a jury’s eyes in the service of some child rapist. And it is only right, the ministers and their tame tabloid nodding lapdogs echoed, that in straitened times, we take sensible steps to address this imbalance by reducing expenditure while ensuring that those who need legal aid still have access to it. This we can achieve by making those fat cats squeal. In 2011, the Ministry of Justice prepared for battle. Identifying legal aid as a politically vulnerable target for some quick savings, it fumbled in its knapsack and withdrew what would come to be its most potent weapon in keeping the public onside against the inevitable wails from lawyers. From that day forth, every single Ministry of Justice pronouncement was squired by the same mantra: ‘We have the most expensive legal aid system in the world.’ As the title quotation demonstrates, so potent was it that, long after leaving ministerial office, MoJ alumni cannot help themselves from telling anyone who will listen that the per capita cost of legal aid in the UK is the highest in the world. The only problem is ...