Hundreds of barristers have quit the criminal courts since 2016 prompting fears in the justice system of a shortage of prosecution and defence counsel.
Senior lawyers have told The Times that low legal aid rates, which means some defence barristers being paid below the minimum wage, and court delays because of Covid-19, have led to an exodus, particularly of young lawyers.
According to officials at the Criminal Bar Association, 22 per cent of junior criminal barristers have left since 2016 and specialist chambers in England and Wales have reduced their tenancies by about a third. Research by the association showed that the number of junior barristers specialising in crime had fallen by 11 per cent between 2016-17 and 2019-20 from 2,553 to 2,273.
Over the past year the association said that another 11 per cent of junior barristers had left criminal work.
The association said that senior barristers were also deserting the criminal courts, the number of QCs who primarily work in the criminal courts falling in five years by half to about 130.
The technical definition of junior barrister is wide, encompassing all those who are not QCs but will still have been practising for decades. The association said that defections from the criminal Bar were acute among lawyers of five to fiteen years’ call.
It is thought that some stay in the legal profession but move to prosecution authorities such as the Crown Prosecution Service or the Serious Fraud Office or to regulatory bodies. Other barristers have simply left the legal profession.
“Crime hasn’t paid for the criminal barristers who prosecute and defend,” said Jo Sidhu QC, the chairman of the association. He said that the Ministry of Justice had underspent on its budget by about £440 million owing to court delays because of the lockdowns.
There is a backlog of 60,000 cases in crown courts, where trials of the most serious crimes are heard. Some trials are not being listed for two years.
The association said that many of the barrister defections had been prompted by a lack of work resulting from social-distancing measures imposed on the courts and the delays to cases.
Sidhu said: “It would be deeply unfair and disastrous for victims and defendants alike if the government pocketed the near half a billion pounds of savings it has reaped from two years of its cuts-induced trial delays exacerbated by Covid, leaving the criminal justice system starved of funding and operated by a skeleton service made up of the few criminal advocates who are left.”
Derek Sweeting QC, the chairman of the Bar Council, the body that represents all 17,500 barristers in England and Wales, said: “Years of cuts have made criminal practice less attractive and much more stressful.”
The Ministry of Justice said: “There is no strong evidence that a shortage of barristers is currently a constraint on recovery but we will continue to monitor the situation.
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