Post by nickd on Sept 3, 2011 8:49:16 GMT 1
These are very wealthy lawyers
Doesn't the one on the left look familiar?
Go on have a close look
Here's what we call a social welfare lawyer or adviser
who probably earns between £24K and £28K a year
How do they all get paid?
By Legal Aid
Recognised the face yet? Well, if you look hard enough you may just pick up on the eyes, they are very similar to our Prime Ministers; - that because this well remunerated queens counsel (QC) is none other than Alex Cameron - the Prime Minister's brother.
David Cameron has told the Big Issue that he “lived in the shadow” of his high-flying older brother while they were at Eton together — almost thirty years on, it’s not difficult to see why. Alex Cameron QC, a top criminal barrister, has been paid over £1.13m in legal aid fees over the last decade, while the Ministry of Justice is trying to slash support for the most vulnerable in society.
But the family connections don’t stop there. The MoJ has finally replied to a freedom of information request asking for the legal aid earnings of both Cameron and Oliver Blunt QC, brother of MoJ minister Crispin Blunt. The nine-year breakdown shows a combined total of over £7m, with Blunt personally pocketing a massive £5.86m (full figures below).
Their earnings are listed below in this post.
An article by Political scrapbook tells us..
"Dominic Grieve noted in 2009 that ordinary family and social welfare solicitors are “poor as church mice” — but the website for Blunt’s chambers boasts that “Oliver regularly appears in the list of highest earning criminal barristers”. Proposed spending cuts will remove legal aid from vital but unglamorous areas like employment, education and housing law, while leaving support for the sorts of high-profile criminal cases handled by Cameron and Blunt untouched."
Why bring this up?
I think it is important to try and dispel some of the myths which have been sounded out by people on the INTERNET and in general discussion. Some people put out a a view that legal aid is one almighty gravy train which pays out vast sums to all lawyers and advice agencies who are funded by Legal Aid; - it really isn't the case at all.
It's not having a go at all legal aid lawyers and barristers, there's a huge gulf between those who are not so well paid and those who, like Alex Cameron and Oliver Blunt are incredibly well paid.
Some of you may have heard how, at a cost of £2.2 billion pounds the legal aid budget 'has to be cut'. I'm not sure I can agree that any of it should be cut, but if cuts are being made, it is my contention that it should not be in social welfare law cases.
Many of you may not realise how legal aid pays advice agencies (like the CAB and law centres) to help people with problems over their housing, benefit entitlement, debts, employment; - it also funds many solicitors to provide other services such as family advice.
What to me is incomprehensible is how government is doing little, if anything to curtail the huge sums paid to 'high cost' lawyers like Cameron and Blunt. It just doesn't seem right to me that legal aid can pay these enormous sums to well paid barristers in cases which can cost the state over £1 million pounds.
It's my view that the high cost fraud cases should perhaps be funded in another way, perhaps by the financial sector. These trials are nearly always connected with high finances so I think it sensible that this sector looks to funding the kind of cases which often arise and end up taking massive slices out of our legal aid budget.
One high cost criminal case for instance could fund many hundreds if not thousands of social welfare law cases. A lot of these high cost trials involve well known people such as Asil Nadir who is currently awaiting trial on multi million pound fraud charges. I think he should be allowed the costs of his defence; - just not out of a legal aid budget which has to be shared between everyone. His case could be funded by the financial sector, he was after all very much part of it before the collapse of Polly Peck; - Nadir enjoyed all the profits from the financial sector and now I think it only right that he looks to them to fund his case.
I hasten to add that the social welfare lawyer handles around 250 to 300 cases per year and is usually salaried at a cost of between £24 and £28 K a year, works well over their hours and gets no over time.
Here's how much Cameron and Blunt earned out of legal aid...
Alex Cameron
2001/02 - £8,813
2002/03 - £3,884
2003/04 - £130,609
2004/05 - £329,775
2005/06 - £60,285
2006/07 - £48,374
2007/08 - £179,754
2008/09 - £237,104
2009/10 - £140,998
Oliver Blunt
2001/2002 - £497,066
2002/2003 - £703,000
2003/2004 - £839,000
2004/2005 - £674,988
2005/2006 - £913,000
2006/2007 - £924,000
2007/2008 - £595,268
2008/2009 - £433,169
2009/2010 - £288,627
On this thread we'll have a look at the kind of cases each of these lawyers work on under legal aid funding, we'll also look at some of the barristers who earn somewhere in between, many of them struggle to make a living out of the legal aid system.
It's important to dispel these myths over legal aid, you can't judge it until you know more about it.
Links..
www.yell.com/solicitors/blog/civil-legal-aid-under-threat/
politicalscrapbook.net/2011/07/pm’s-brother-earns-1-13m-while-legal-aid-slashed-for-poorest/