Fat cat barrister
Below the cut an illustration with explanations, probably tedious to all but me, of why barristers aren't necessarily rich.
Under the new payment rules for family legal aid cases, the first hour of a hearing is paid at at one rate (for the type of hearing I did yesterday, which was proceedings for protective orders against domestic violence under the Family Law Act 1996, it's £76 for the first hour). Thereafter, you're paid slightly more than twice that (£191.50 for an FLA hearing) for each block of 2.5 hours, or part thereof. (So, up to 1 hour, £76; up to 2.5 hours, £191.50; up to 5 hours, £383. The luncheon adjournment is counted out of your blocks of time unless you worked over it, which LET ME TELL YOU is not fun. My stomach grumbles angrily just thinking of being locked in with a client or an opponent when I want to be eating lunch.)
Family law barristers (and solicitors, to whom the new rates apply -- this is new, there used to be different ways of paying solicitors who appear at Court) have for the most part figured out a trick to get around being paid less than £100 for what could be a full day's work. Now before you go all SEE YOU LAWYERS ARE SO SNEAKY AND JUST KNOW HOW TO MAKE MORE MONEY, bear in mind two things. First, each hearing involves out-of-court work both in terms of prep, which at the very least is reading the papers and often also involves drafting a position statement and/or doing legal research; and after-court work which will consist of an attendance note and possibly typing up an order in terms agreed or directed at court. None of this is taken into account in the new payment scheme. Second, barristers, at least, take home about half of what we make, after paying income tax and chambers' rent. Solicitors get salaries. I'm not quite sure what happens with the money they make at Court. Presumably their firm gets it and then they get their salaries. Dunno.
So. Trick to get paid more. How we do it is, every order we draft, when we list the next hearing we put at the end of the paragraph "Parties and their representatives do attend the hearing one hour in advance of the listed time for the purposes of negotiation." This is legit. Court advocates always attend at least a half hour in advance and always use the time for negotiation (at least, family court advocates do, and that's all who's involved here.) It means that a) we get paid for this hour and b) we get bumped in to the first 2.5 hour unit as soon as the time the case is listed arrives. (Eg: hearing listed at 10 o'clock. Everyone arrives -- and, very important, is directed on the previous order to arrive -- at 9am. At 10:05, everyone is past their first hour and into their first 2.5 hour payment chunk and therefore makes -- in the case of an FLA hearing -- £191.50 instead of a measly £76... remember these people have legitimately been there for an hour by this point.)
Of course, this doesn't work if the order was drafted by the judge. Judges, unless they are still barristers, don't know about all of this and don't generally draft to direct parties to attend one hour in advance. It's just expected, and under the old way of paying, it would have been accounted for in some way, but not now. My hearing today was listed at 3pm in Staines County Court with no provision to attend early -- almost certainly drafted by the judge at the previous hearing, unless counsel at the previous hearing just forgot in which case FIST SHAKE OF DOOM AT SAID BARRISTER. It was listed with a time estimate of 15 minutes. My instructing solicitor informed me that she intended to attend at 2.30pm.
I figured out my route to court. According to the Journey Planner website, if I left just before 12.45, I should walk to Hackney Central, get the Overground to Highbury & Islington, the Victoria line to Vauxhall, and I could pick up a train to Staines from there.
I duly left at just before 12.45 and arrived at Hackney Central station to find people milling about in aimless annoyance and the electronic signs displaying "severe disruption Richmond to Stratford." No trains imminent or expected. I walked straight out and called a cab. It came quite quickly. It cost me £23 to Vauxhall. I still missed the train I was supposed to get, at 13.32. The next fast train to Staines didn't come until 14.02. (£9.30 for an off-peak return ticket.)
I arrived at the station in Staines at 14.37. I knew it was a ten-minute walk to the court, but I'd never been to this court before and couldn't for the life of me figure out which street was "Station Approach," being the one I needed to start walking along. There was a row of cabs outside the station. I got one. It took two minutes, literally, to get to the court building and cost £5.
So I was only ten minutes late. Things all went very smoothly and orders were quite easily agreed/made by the judge. He didn't even want me to draft the order, saying he'd draw it up himself (that a) explains the previous order and b) means it will be just as bad next time). We were out of court at 15.55. Ten minutes too early for me to bump into the next unit of time ARGH.
Result? Pay: £76. Taxis: £28. Train: £9.30 -- this at least I can hope to get back, but there is no way in hell the Legal Services Commission will reimburse me for the taxis. So, optimistically, I made £48 and will take home £24. That's it for today. £24!!!!!!
Can anyone wonder I'm not rich?!
Anyway. Will watch Brits now. Blah.
Under the new payment rules for family legal aid cases, the first hour of a hearing is paid at at one rate (for the type of hearing I did yesterday, which was proceedings for protective orders against domestic violence under the Family Law Act 1996, it's £76 for the first hour). Thereafter, you're paid slightly more than twice that (£191.50 for an FLA hearing) for each block of 2.5 hours, or part thereof. (So, up to 1 hour, £76; up to 2.5 hours, £191.50; up to 5 hours, £383. The luncheon adjournment is counted out of your blocks of time unless you worked over it, which LET ME TELL YOU is not fun. My stomach grumbles angrily just thinking of being locked in with a client or an opponent when I want to be eating lunch.)
Family law barristers (and solicitors, to whom the new rates apply -- this is new, there used to be different ways of paying solicitors who appear at Court) have for the most part figured out a trick to get around being paid less than £100 for what could be a full day's work. Now before you go all SEE YOU LAWYERS ARE SO SNEAKY AND JUST KNOW HOW TO MAKE MORE MONEY, bear in mind two things. First, each hearing involves out-of-court work both in terms of prep, which at the very least is reading the papers and often also involves drafting a position statement and/or doing legal research; and after-court work which will consist of an attendance note and possibly typing up an order in terms agreed or directed at court. None of this is taken into account in the new payment scheme. Second, barristers, at least, take home about half of what we make, after paying income tax and chambers' rent. Solicitors get salaries. I'm not quite sure what happens with the money they make at Court. Presumably their firm gets it and then they get their salaries. Dunno.
So. Trick to get paid more. How we do it is, every order we draft, when we list the next hearing we put at the end of the paragraph "Parties and their representatives do attend the hearing one hour in advance of the listed time for the purposes of negotiation." This is legit. Court advocates always attend at least a half hour in advance and always use the time for negotiation (at least, family court advocates do, and that's all who's involved here.) It means that a) we get paid for this hour and b) we get bumped in to the first 2.5 hour unit as soon as the time the case is listed arrives. (Eg: hearing listed at 10 o'clock. Everyone arrives -- and, very important, is directed on the previous order to arrive -- at 9am. At 10:05, everyone is past their first hour and into their first 2.5 hour payment chunk and therefore makes -- in the case of an FLA hearing -- £191.50 instead of a measly £76... remember these people have legitimately been there for an hour by this point.)
Of course, this doesn't work if the order was drafted by the judge. Judges, unless they are still barristers, don't know about all of this and don't generally draft to direct parties to attend one hour in advance. It's just expected, and under the old way of paying, it would have been accounted for in some way, but not now. My hearing today was listed at 3pm in Staines County Court with no provision to attend early -- almost certainly drafted by the judge at the previous hearing, unless counsel at the previous hearing just forgot in which case FIST SHAKE OF DOOM AT SAID BARRISTER. It was listed with a time estimate of 15 minutes. My instructing solicitor informed me that she intended to attend at 2.30pm.
I figured out my route to court. According to the Journey Planner website, if I left just before 12.45, I should walk to Hackney Central, get the Overground to Highbury & Islington, the Victoria line to Vauxhall, and I could pick up a train to Staines from there.
I duly left at just before 12.45 and arrived at Hackney Central station to find people milling about in aimless annoyance and the electronic signs displaying "severe disruption Richmond to Stratford." No trains imminent or expected. I walked straight out and called a cab. It came quite quickly. It cost me £23 to Vauxhall. I still missed the train I was supposed to get, at 13.32. The next fast train to Staines didn't come until 14.02. (£9.30 for an off-peak return ticket.)
I arrived at the station in Staines at 14.37. I knew it was a ten-minute walk to the court, but I'd never been to this court before and couldn't for the life of me figure out which street was "Station Approach," being the one I needed to start walking along. There was a row of cabs outside the station. I got one. It took two minutes, literally, to get to the court building and cost £5.
So I was only ten minutes late. Things all went very smoothly and orders were quite easily agreed/made by the judge. He didn't even want me to draft the order, saying he'd draw it up himself (that a) explains the previous order and b) means it will be just as bad next time). We were out of court at 15.55. Ten minutes too early for me to bump into the next unit of time ARGH.
Result? Pay: £76. Taxis: £28. Train: £9.30 -- this at least I can hope to get back, but there is no way in hell the Legal Services Commission will reimburse me for the taxis. So, optimistically, I made £48 and will take home £24. That's it for today. £24!!!!!!
Can anyone wonder I'm not rich?!
Anyway. Will watch Brits now. Blah.