A typical criminal lawyer will now make £7,000 more annually as a result of the 15% fee increase, and criminal lawyers will also see a 15% fee increase for all of their work, including that performed in police stations, magistrates’ courts, and juvenile courts.
In order for legal practitioners to see a salary increase before the end of the year with the increased fees implemented at the end of September, the law has been expedited.
Sarah Dines, the justice minister, said:
The typical criminal barrister will receive a handsome pay boost of £7,000 following a 15% fee increase as we build a future-proof legal aid system.
Legal practitioners will be better compensated for the crucial work they do to ensure victims receive prompt justice thanks to the £135 million increase in legal aid funding.
With £20 million set aside for this work, the remaining recommendations from the recent consultation on criminal legal aid will be addressed later this year, with the possibility of additional increases for solicitors and other legal professionals as part of longer-term reforms.
Over the past four years, criminal legal aid has received up to £74 million more year, and the proposal to raise funding by £135 million annually is the largest increase in a decade.
According to the Independent Review of Criminal Legal Aid, the typical fee for a criminal barrister in 2019–20 was £79,800 before costs, and 80% made at least £45,000 after expenses.
The average criminal barrister will make £65,000 before costs by the third year of practise, despite junior barristers making significantly less in their first two years of practise.
The government has also loosened the limit on how many days courts can sit for a second year and is pouring £477 million into the justice system to tackle backlogs in the courts brought on by the pandemic.
With the investment, more trials will be able to be held, and the similar choice made last year resulted in roughly 17,000 more days of Crown Court hearings than the year before the pandemic.
Over 70% of all courtrooms now have video technology, and 3,265 virtual courtrooms have been opened to accommodate additional hearings.
Since May, magistrates have had the ability to sentence offenders to up to a year in jail, tripling their prior authority.
This change has allowed the Crown Court to have an additional 1,700 sitting days annually.