Jim Meyer speaks out

The London Criminal Courts Solicitors Association dinner was held last Friday night, and its President – Jim Meyer, gave a speech outlining the fragile state of the Criminal Defence sector and its difficult relationships between the Bar, Judiciary and Solicitors.

Read the Gazette coverage and the full text of the speech below:

Lords, ladies and gentleman, fellow members, distinguished guests.

First things first. Andy Murray is through to the final.

That could be the highpoint of this speech and before I go any further I have to make an admission. I have not been quality assured.

There’s no guarantee that I when I sit down you will be either more informed or more entertained than you are now.

The good news is that I am to shortly introduce the guest speaker, who wears the badge of QC (which presumably stands for Quality Controlled)

Jim has the kite mark which guarantees your entertainment and he informs me that if you are not completely satisfied then you should submit your claim for a refund to the Lord Chancellor at www.who-gives-a-toss.com.

In fact, when I was trying to think of a subject matter for this speech, I was gripped by indecision. There are now so many issues with which we, as criminal practitioners, both solicitors and barristers, have to contend.

18 months ago, the most profitable firms offering publicly funded criminal defence services operated on margins of just 12% and in the certain knowledge that those would fall to below 5%.

The supplier base is now so fragile that many firms are dying, not because of the much feared “cull”, but rather because of a slower, suffocating squeeze.

The service that we call criminal defence is in very real danger of fragmenting just at a time when other stakeholders want providers to “invest”.

Amongst our guests this evening we have the judiciary, members of the self-employed Bar and of course leading criminal practitioners, both prosecution and defence. So the question I ask myself is, if there was one thing that I would like each of you to know, what is it?

Well, I would like the Judiciary to truly appreciate how precarious the system really is.
Judges need to know that Practitioners now feel more like indentured servants than respected colleagues and officers of the court.

The riot courts would not and could not have functioned without the commitment of Defence solicitors. No one who understands how we are remunerated could surely think that those days presented a cash windfall for firms. We heard the call to work through the night and we responded; we put the interests of justice, of the courts system, of victims and of defendants over our own personal and financial considerations.

Decision makers were clearly impressed with the results, and now so-called “flexible” courts are being mooted. But there is a distinct lack of engagement with Defence representative organisations, and it is not so much about flexibility, but more about extension.

It is, frankly, unwise to expect the Defence to contract to undertake work on terms that can so easily be torn up and re-written. Every action has a reaction and those at HMCTS need to understand that.

No doubt the judiciary’s views are being canvassed, and we ask you not to forget about us. Ask HMCTS whether the initiative has defence support. Ask what engagement there is on the subject and whether the sustainability of a system of defence of those prosecuted is being considered.

We joined the profession as lawyers, intent on maintaining the rule of law and respect for the concept of justice. But “justice” requires equal access to the court, and, if not equal means and resources then, at least parity between parties.

The truth is there is no longer an equality of arms as between the publicly funded-defendant and the prosecutor. If you can afford to fund your defence privately then you are going to get a better defence. It is as simple as that. That was a deliberate government policy. Job done.

We have previously warned of the dangers of centralising courts and police stations, and of the growing disconnect between local communities, lawyers and the administration of justice, and now we read about the government’s desire for “swift, sure justice” as a supplement to “simple, speedy, summary justice” and “stop delaying justice”.

And what about this idea of “stop delaying justice”. None of us are against that, but it has to be justice for all. Justice must not only be seen to be done, but it must be done.

Like cases should be treated alike. The standards of readiness that are applied to the defence must be equally applied to the prosecution.

It is not right to say that Defendants know if they are guilty or not. They may well know if they did the act alleged, but they will often not know the requisite intent set down by parliament. And even if they do know that, the stick is to take away credit for them not pleading guilty, rather than by-pass the defence lawyer and conduct a mini inquisition at the first hearing.

The test to see where all this is going is the response to Ken Clarke’s call for a review of sanctions for disclosure failures in criminal trials. Will it be about recognising the failures of the current regime or simply more cost cutting? Already the noises from Whitehall do not sound promising, with the government apparently worried about the “resource burden” of the current disclosure regime, which is civil servant speak for “it costs too much”.

The criminal justice system has always been used as a political football, and we rely on the Judiciary’s independence to guard against the excesses of political expediency. The courts deliver justice but there’s no hope if they are not given the right ingredients.

To our colleagues on the Bench, I have a simple message: never forget that the record on which you judge the Defence today is the record on which history will judge criminal justice tomorrow. As the lead character in the film Jerry McGuire would say…”help us to help you”.
And to our guests from the Bar. Let’s not pretend that we cannot see the growing schism between our two branches of what is, after all, a single profession. The question is, what are we going to do about it?

Like barristers, solicitors are struggling with very adverse conditions but we are also finding it difficult to trust the Bar’s motives.

The call on judges to “halt solicitor abuse of QASA and plea only advocates”, the BSB’s description of solicitors as “superfluous intermediaries”, and the suggestion that solicitors are improperly withholding / delaying payment to barristers only serves to rub salt in to the wound that was first inflicted in the days of Lord Carter.

It is insulting to suggest that only “trial advocates” can properly advise on plea and evidence. This is the bread and butter work of solicitors, who make assessments regarding the strength of the prosecution’s case from the point of arrest, through to plea before venue and trial thereafter.

Some of you may not want a “fused profession”, but with the scheme of Direct Access becoming ever more extended and more and more barristers training up to be duty solicitors, that is the direction of travel. We all now have the freedom to fuse if we want to. It’s one of the few freedoms left in criminal practice from a lawyer’s point of view.

QASA and the talk of so-called “Plea only Advocates” and wanting Youth Court work allocated to jury advocates is a distraction from tackling the real issue of inadequate public funding of criminal defence services. If we argue amongst ourselves that one branch should be paid at the expense of another, then we are accepting that there is a “single pot” and play in to the hands of those arguing for “one case one fee”.

The fact is that the proper functioning of the adversarial system and justice requires both litigator and advocacy skills and access to those skills across the whole country needs proper and consistent funding.

The current configuration of criminal legal services has many features that should be sustained and nourished (and I dare say that the majority of solicitors in this room support a niche advocacy Bar – I know that I certainly do).

But for every barrister facing problems there is a criminal solicitor facing redundancy – what is unhelpful to the debate is the narrow self-interest of one group of stakeholders being promoted above the wider interests of clients and all those involved in delivering quality and justice.

I call out to the Bar’s representative bodies, in particular the BSB and the CBA – let’s have an open meeting for all our members so that we can debate the issues and find the common ground that is needed before it is too late.

To my fellow members: do not be disheartened, and know that you are as good if not better than many of your partner colleagues in the criminal justice system.

Engage with this Association and encourage colleagues to join. Unity is strength and over the next 12 to 18 months we are going to need a great deal of it.

Finally, before I introduce this evening’s guest speaker, I want to thank Lexis Nexis and Weslyan for Lawyers for generously sponsoring this evening’s dinner.

I also want to publicly congratulate Nick Creighton on becoming a Commander of the British Empire and Peter Lewis a Companion of the Order of the Bath.

Congratulations too to former Association members Dennis Brennan and Nigel Dean who have both become full time District Judges.

I want to thank my committee for all their hard work this year, and in particular Ahktar Ahmed our vice president, Nicola Hill our junior vice president, Anil Rajani our treasurer, Melanie Stooks our secretary, Jonathan Black our training officer and Tony Miesels our law reform officer. Greg Powell stood down as executive officer this year, and I know that his guidance and good counsel is already sorely missed.

But most of all, I want to thank Sandra Dawson, the Association’s tireless administrator. She is our rock, and without her we would all be lost.

So my speech is coming to an end and all that remains is for me to introduce our guest speaker. But before I do that I’d like to invite my fellow members to stand and raise your glasses to our guests.

So now to the main event.

The Bar’s own Steve Austin…The six million dollar man (ok Jim, i’m exaggerating slightly but the rest is all true)…

The fearless defender of the innocent…The tireless campaigner…The legend.

On the QASA scoring system, I’d give him one!

In short, the person you’ve all come to see.

I have great pleasure to introduce Jim Sturman of Queen’s Counsel.