The crisis in the profession has seen solicitors' earnings drop 25 per cent from three years ago, writes CAROL COULTER
PATRICK IS a partner in a medium-sized firm specialising in criminal law. As such it has not suffered from the meltdown in the property market, but has still not been immune from the crisis in the solicitors’ profession.
“Criminal legal aid to solicitors has been cut by 34 per cent since the cutbacks began,” he says. “You really cannot afford to prepare complicated cases properly without subsidising them from private work. You get an instruction fee of €1,100 for what could be a big drugs case in the Circuit Court, and €400 a day after that. There are no allowances for the time put in.”
The reduction in legal aid has meant cuts to the pay of everyone working in the firm, with solicitors earning an annual salary of about €50,000, down 25 per cent on what it was three years ago. Yet young solicitors are writing in all the time offering to work for three months for nothing in order to get experience, he said.
The partners have also taken a cut in their earnings, which have fallen to under €200,000 gross, out of which they pay pension contributions and tax.
“Criminal lawyers have to be available 24 hours a day. We have a call system with people on call at weekends and so on, but a good few clients have my mobile number, and I could get a call at any time from a Garda station. All the partners are on call every fourth weekend from lunchtime Saturday to lunchtime Sunday.”
Unlike in the UK, there is no legal obligation on the Garda Síochána to have a solicitor present before questioning a suspect, though this is likely to come through the EU. This will increase the amount of work required of defence solicitors, who are already under-resourced, according to Patrick.
“We have no investigators working with us. Every decent criminal lawyer in the US has an investigator. And there is no independent forensic laboratory here. We have to go to England.”
Expenditure on criminal legal aid is not politically popular. Resources are already being cut, and a decision to break the parity between defence and prosecution barristers was made last July with little opposition.
The middle class generally does not care what happens to legal aid for what are perceived as career criminals. However, this can change when an accusation comes close to home.
“I have seen a greater number of middle-class kids getting caught with a reasonable amount of controlled substances,” Patrick said.
“Another area of concern for middle-class parents is sexual activity among those under the legal age, and the possibility of their sons being prosecuted for it.”