Despite budget cuts & slashed fees, the Bar will survive & prosper, says Nicholas Lavender QC
Heraclitus taught that everything is in flux, and 2,500 years of history have not proved him wrong. Change is constant, in legal services as elsewhere, and not always for the better. It is as tempting for a lawyer, as for anyone else, to follow Lord Salisbury’s example and ask: “Change? Aren’t things bad enough already?”
For many at the Bar, the direction of change is positive. Looked at as a whole, the Bar is growing and prospering. However, the picture is markedly different for different sectors of the Bar. At one end of the spectrum, many specialist civil practitioners are busier than ever. At the other end, criminal barristers have endured year after year of fee cuts and now face the package of proposals which are euphemistically called Transforming Legal Aid, as well as awaiting the imminent report by Sir Bill Jeffrey on the market for criminal advocacy services.
Meanwhile, clients who cannot afford to fund litigation face more and more restrictions on their opportunities to
