GeekLawyer’s Blog

It was only a matter of time. Ruthie received a frantic phone call from an old friend following a swathe of redundancies of private practice criminal defence lawyers. The worst affected seem to be medium sized London firms where criminal defence was only one of the services on offer. The commercial lawyers simply aren’t prepared to subside the criminal lawyers to the extent required to produce a competitive tender. Specialist criminal firms are surviving more successfully, but only because they are have adapted to working with low overheads and low profit margins. There are however a glut of small criminal practices in London. Ruthie predicts many will either have to merge or go to the wall.

Any lawyer who took even a passing interest in the reform of legal aid predicted this outcome. However redundancies within the criminal defence field were previously unknown. Sure city lawyers got dumped, but then they were paid at a level to compensate them for the risk. A surprising number of people seemed to think redundancies would simply never happen.

Ruthie predicts within 5 years publicly funded criminal defence services will be provided solely by a few very large specialist regional firms. It’s a Criminal Defence Service in all but name. Just cheaper. As for all the lawyers now joining the dole queue? Anyone with any sense got out years ago, so alternative employment is hard to find.

The dismantling of publicly funded legal aid generates more support than dismay amongst the voting middle classes. As a society we are now more regulated than ever, so the chances of an average citizen coming into conflict with the law are increased. Just remember, if you do get arrested and need decent representation, it’s likely in the future to be very expensive. Still, innocent people don’t get arrested, so you’ve nothing to worry about.