The leader of the London Criminal Courts Solicitors Association hits out at the patronising bar — as well as the government for turning Magna Carta celebrations into a “legal business fair”
Criminal law specialist solicitors are fed up to the eyeteeth with being patronised and condescended to by barristers, a top-flight High Court advocate from that branch of the profession said yesterday.
Jon Black challenged the bar to be less petty in his first speech as president of the London Criminal Courts Solicitors’ Association.
But the senior solicitor-advocate from London-based law firm BSB Solicitors did not reserve his ire exclusively for barristers – Black also lashed out at Ministry of Justice plans to host a shindig next year marking the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta, while at the same time torching the legal aid budget.
Ramping up tensions between the two main branches of the legal profession, in a speech to the association yesterday, Black proclaimed:
“We shan’t pander to elitist notions that we are not able to bat for the first 11, or that we must certify that clients have been notified that they could use a ‘real barrister’ instead of the ‘imposters’ that call themselves solicitor advocates.”
His comments will stir the pot of an already bubbling brew that is solicitor-advocate and barrister relations. The atmosphere has become increasingly tense as result of the government’s draconian legal aid cuts and the growing band of solicitor-advocates qualified to appear in the Crown Courts.
“There needs to be an understanding that we [solicitor-advocates] are not appearing in the Crown Court for the sake of cutting out the bar,” said Black, who originally was called to the bar but transferred to the solicitor side. “But because we need to, we want to and we are capable of doing so.”
His robust remarks came on the heels of a Criminal Bar Association initiative aiming at “levelling the playing field” between barristers and solicitor-advocates. According to a report in the Law Gazette, CBA chairman Tony Cross QC, told last weekend’s Bar Council annual conference that junior barristers are handicapped in Crown Court practice relative to solicitor counterparts because of a quirk in the bar’s practice rules.
Barristers must rack up 120 days’ advocacy training but solicitors can be accredited for Crown Court rights with just 22 hours’ training.
The Gazette there has been a “marked shift” away from the bar for Crown Court advocacy work, with “many more solicitor-advocates than there were in the [initial] years following the liberalisation of the rights of audience”.
In his speech yesterday, Back said the LCCSA will provide a “comprehensive advocacy training programme”, and he went on to say that regardless of professional rivalries, the bar should “avoid cheap shots aimed at solicitor-advocates when the reality facing access to justice lies elsewhere”.
Black (pictured) described the Magna Carta bunfight as a “legal business fair”, for which delegates will be charged a £1,000 registration fee.
The lawyer lambasted Justice Secretary Chris Grayling for lacking a sense of irony in his support of the summit and his intention to speak at it, not least because the current Lord Chancellor does not have a legal qualification and because he has overseen a wholesale slashing of legal aid fees.
Black pointed to the Magna Carta passage stating: “We will not make men justices, constables, sheriffs, or bailiffs unless they are such as know the law of the realm, and are minded to observe it rightly.”
Black told the association:
“We intend along with the Justice Alliance to make a lot of noise and draw attention to the disgraceful fact that this event ignores the painful destruction of our justice system by one of its own keynote speakers.”