Legal aid lawyers earn less than sewage workers, claims Law Soc
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Legal aid lawyers face a lifetime of scrimping and saving after a report has found that they are taking home a smaller wage than sewage workers.
Legal aid lawyers will have to rule out expensive living after a new report found that they are among the worst paid in the public sector with the average salary barely hitting the £25,000 mark.
The findings mean that those working in legal aid are taking home less than prison officers or sewage plant workers. This figure is also well below the earnings of City solicitors where trainees start can start on as much as £40,000 per year.
Law Society Chief Executive Desmond Hudson said: “These figures show that solicitors undertaking legal aid earn well below the average for professional salaries, and considering solicitors can amass significant student debts and work very long hours, the pay is very far from fat cat territory.”
The survey, which has been conducted by the Guardian Newspaper, has come just after the Ministry of Justice produced a consultation paper outlining plans to slash legal aid fees further.
The Law Society has said that any cuts to the already “thread-bare” legal aid system will mean that firms will no longer be able to undertake pro bono work meaning that vulnerable clients will be unable to obtain the assistance they need.
According to figures released by The Law Society, the salary of senior civil servants is nearly £70,000 - almost three times higher than a legal aid solicitor.
Although I returned home from work utterly exhausted yesterday I managed to squeeze out enough energy to have a heated discussion with my husband about the lack of quality careers advice on offer to students at state secondary schools.
Readers' comments (8)
Dazed and confused | 19-Nov-2009 12:47 pm
"OMG! Hoooowww possibly could legal aid lawyers earn less than pesky sewage workers!".... I mean, come on. Stick up for the poor sewage workers!
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Anonymous | 19-Nov-2009 12:49 pm
I think this is outrageous! Perhaps City lawyers can stop moaning about their pay freezes etc and look further down the food chain to lawyers who are actually doing the real work!!!
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IHateBPP | 19-Nov-2009 1:49 pm
It's the nature of the work - your clients are broke and legal aid won't pay for much. Still, someone has to do it and I would imagine many of the solicitors handling legal aid work wouldn't want to do anything else.
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Anonymous | 20-Nov-2009 11:22 am
Maybe they ought to do more cases rather than sitting around until just before the limitation period. I had a clinical negligence case that just dragged and dragged. I did all the donkey work chasing reports. I walked away with £16,500 my Legal Aid Solicitor pocketed c. £26,00. The starting salary for the assistant at the firm was £28,000, which at the time was more than my salary and I have a PhD. Complete rubbish
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Frank D'Souza, Law Soc Council Member until last J | 20-Nov-2009 1:37 pm
Apart from the fact that the Blair and Brown Administrations have both been more right-wing than most of the Cameronians (and "Dave" himself), legal fees & salaries for all but the City few, will continue to be depressed by the continuing, explosive growth in the number of solicitors being churned out. Massive over-supply and declining demand. QED.
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Anonymous | 21-Nov-2009 1:00 am
As far as criminal legal aid is concerned they should publish how much the solicitors firm gets paid for the average magistrates and crown court case -what they pay their staff is another matter, they are running a business after all.
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Mel N. Collie | 21-Nov-2009 11:39 pm
It is disgusting that those who do the valuable, meaningful work, by helping the poor and disadvantaged, end up earning the least on the pay scale. But Capitalism is the dominant ideology, so one musn't complain.
Unless you are self-serving, individualistic, self-centered, selfish, materialistic imp, DO NOT GO FOR A CAREER IN LAW. Law is the least noble of all professions.
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Daniel | 22-Nov-2009 10:29 am
Since money seems to be the deciding factor here, why don't the legal aid lawyers apply for sewage worker jobs, there will then be a shortage of legal aid lawyers and an oversubscription of sewage workers which will result in a drop in salary for sewage workers and a rise in salary for legal aid lawyers... it's the free market innit?
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