Bar Conference 2008: Too many solicitors are no good in court, say barristers | Conservatives warn against 'politically correct' prosecutions | Lord Bingham: 'no reason' to exclude Sharia | Law could become the preserve of privileged few once more | Is the Bar becoming a two-tier profession?

How healthy is the barrister's branch of the legal profession? With the annual Bar conference taking place this Saturday, we asked a selection of lawyers to give their views, including a straw poll among The Times Law Panel.

What emerges is a profession where morale is low among those doing publicly-funded work because of the downward squeeze on fees and cuts to the courts service but high among the commercial and Chancery practitioners who can benefit from the upside of the credit crunch: a rise in litigation.

Concerns go wider than barristers' own pockets. The thread that runs through the comments is that professionalism and standards of service in the justice system are being put are risk by cost-cutting measures. At the same time, the Bar faces a pincer-movement of solicitors doing more higher court advocacy; and a push into crminal trial work by crown prosecutors. Can it survive?

Criminal and family lawyers are feeling worst hit. Peter Lodder, QC, chairman of the Criminal Bar Association, says: "The criminal Bar continues to provide a high quality, professional service. It is determined to support and maintain a criminal justice system that has been an example throughout the world. But increasingly it feels that the interests of justice are being sacrificed to short-term cost-cutting."

He is concerned about the standards of solicitors now taking trials, the "higher court advocates", some of whom are "simply appalling", he says. "Watching the descruction by the use of apparently cheap and inadequate labour is deeply upsetting and demoralising to the professional Bar."

Meanwhile the courts service has been "pared to the bone already, he says. "I have no idea where further cuts may be made."

Similarly on the family justice front, Lucy Theis, QC, of the Family Law Bar Association, gives warning that proposed cuts will "have an adverse impact on the family justice system which is not in the public interest". She says: "It is the parents and children with no voice who will be left with either no representation or no experienced representation when the state wants to take their children into care. It is that stark."

Faisal Osman, a young criminal barrister, agrees. "You only have to look at the alarming increase of litigants in person in family cases to appreciate the day-to-day effects of a funding crisis. Access to justice is under threat."

Meanwhile the best in the profession will be driven from publicly-funded work, he and others say. "The days of the specialist publicly-funded practitioner might be over, not through choice but through necessity. That cannot be good for the public. Nobody wants to represent the most vulnerable begrudgingly, and as a second option."

It is a different story at the commercial end. Michael Todd, QC, a commercial silk with Erskine Chambers and this year's conference organiser, is typically upbeat: "The Bar's future is assured. It continues to attract new entrants of the highest quality. It provides continuing education and training to all practitioners. Its core values, of independence, of commitment to justice and to access to justice to all, and to excellence in the provision of its services will ensure its continued survival."

And, he adds, the Bar "will continue to meet the challenges placed before it and will emerge all the stronger as it does so."

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