THE legal profession is preparing for a confrontation over legal aid with a warning from the head of the Law Society that the £2.1 billion scheme is near collapse.

Kevin Martin, 58, who took over this month as president of the 100,000-strong solicitors’ body in England and Wales, said that the rates of pay for lawyers doing legal-aid work were an insult. “The system is descending into almost terminal decline. Something needs to be done pretty soon and pretty drastically,” he told The Times. “Without the prospect of more money, the system is in danger of collapse.”

His comments coincide with concern from the chairman of the Bar that barristers will refuse legal-aid work unless Lord Falconer of Thoroton, the Lord Chancellor, increases their rates of pay — pegged for eight years — for the majority of trials that last up to ten days. Guy Mansfield, QC, said: “The mood is one of cold anger and a feeling of betrayal. I believe that most criminal practitioners are likely to register their anger in one way or another. People feel at the end of the road.”

The Lord Chancellor has set up a review of the legal aid system, arguing that specific areas cannot be addressed piecemeal — a move, the Bar says, that will delay fee rises for a year.

Solicitors are also concerned about plans to introduce price-bidding for criminal legal-aid work. Mr Martin criticised these proposals as a “knife in the wound of legal aid”.

Neither leader endorses “strike” action because to do so would flout competition rules. But they say that such action would be understandable given the level of feeling.

“The proposals for price-competitive tendering are unacceptable in their current form but it is for each individual solicitor to decide what action he or she should take,” Mr Martin said.

He added that the Lord Chancellor had acknowledged the £130 million shortfall in legal aid but “that we just have to keep coping”.

“But a whole range of people in the justice system are in danger of functioning hardly at all,” Mr Martin added. “There are . . . Citizens Advice Bureaux; voluntary organisations; law centres . . . all howling with degrees of upset, who are running out of road and have to cope with deficiences. And last, but not least, there is the client. A lot of deserving people are falling through a huge net.”

He said that City solicitors — the profitable end of the profession — were also concerned, having experienced the deficiencies during pro bono work.

Mr Mansfield also criticised the Lord Chancellor yesterday for announcing cuts of more than 12 per cent from October to the rates for Queen’s Counsel, including a second cut in rates for trials lasting more than ten days.

“Barristers taking these cases will receive a material reduction in their rates of pay,” he said. “So at the same time as delaying the review of fees for junior barristers, he makes these further mercurial cuts. It’s one-way traffic.”

The cost, he added, of restoring the 23 per cent rate cut placed on junior barristers was only £9 million. Instead the Lord Chancellor was making a further cut of £7 million.

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