Do solicitors still have to pay counsel under the new code of conduct? Barbara Hewson investigates
On 1 July 2007, the new Solicitors’ Code of Conduct came into force. Ordinarily, the Bar does not take much interest in how solicitors govern themselves, but on this occasion the Bar has something to worry about. The new code has quietly dropped r 20.06, which provided: “Except in legal aid cases, solicitors are personally liable as a matter of professional conduct for the payment of counsel’s proper fees, whether or not they have been placed in funds by the client.”
According to the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA):
“The Regulation Review Working Party undertook detailed research on the principles of professional conduct and decided that it was not necessary for the new Code to contain such a provision.”
It does not seem to have occurred to anyone that, by not taking account of the basis on which solicitors engage barristers in England and Wales, the new code is deficient, as it potentially places the solicitors’ branch of the legal profession and their clients at risk. It is remarkable
