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Barrister Salary Cap

  • 20-03-2009 8:56pm
    #1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 652 ✭✭✭


    Just had a discussion with a barrister about this, was interested to know what people think.

    Could a cap on barristers' earnings be introduced? Would it have any beneficial effects in terms of deflating legal costs etc, or should the legal market be kept open?


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Comments

  • Registered Users Posts: 1,168 ✭✭✭dats_right


    Sounds like populist nonsense! Two points of note; firstly, there is absolutely nothing stopping somebody who is instructing a barrister from negotiating fees, etc; secondly, one could argue that fees are somewhat 'capped' already by the system of taxation of costs.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 652 ✭✭✭Jim_Are_Great


    Negotaitions aren't all that meaningful really. Clients don't always have full choice over their representation. A cap would deflate the wages of all barristers so that even where negotiations do take place, they could take place in an environment which is more litigant-friendly.


  • Registered Users Posts: 12,148 ✭✭✭✭Sangre


    I hear its all the rage in SOVIET RUSSIA you red commie.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 652 ✭✭✭Jim_Are_Great


    In Soviet Russia, hackneyed turns of phrase make YOU.


  • Legal Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 4,338 Mod ✭✭✭✭Tom Young


    Like any good taxi driver would know, Barristers are sole traders, best of luck applying that idea.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 652 ✭✭✭Jim_Are_Great


    They perform a public function, though. Surely it's not completely unthinkable that the state should regulate private enterprise to some extent?


  • Registered Users Posts: 185 ✭✭Quaver


    How do they perform a public service? They're hired to do a job, just like anyone else.

    As mentioned, they're fees are capped to a certain extent in that they can be taxed if there is a dispute. Also, you can get a quote from a Barrister for the work to be done, and if you don't like it, you can shop around.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 652 ✭✭✭Jim_Are_Great


    Quaver wrote: »
    How do they perform a public service? They're hired to do a job, just like anyone else.

    As mentioned, they're fees are capped to a certain extent in that they can be taxed if there is a dispute. Also, you can get a quote from a Barrister for the work to be done, and if you don't like it, you can shop around.

    They're hired to do a job which is legally mandated, and often form part of a transaction into which people have little choice but to enter.

    Also, you can shop around, but all barristers determine their own fees (as far as my very limited understanding goes). If there was a cap, the highest salary echelons would be decreased, thus deflating prices across the board.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,168 ✭✭✭dats_right


    But why stop there Comrade, sorry I mean OP, why not also cap restaurants, bars, shops, etc as they are all exploiting the proletariat.. In fact, why don't we do it properly and just abolish private ownership of land and private enterprise entirely.. Viva la revolucion!!


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 652 ✭✭✭Jim_Are_Great


    That's very witty, Dats_Right.

    Shops in direct competition operate to keep prices low. Barristers in closed competition keep prices high.

    Also, recourse to barristers is, in most legal matters of significance, inevitable. The entire legal system is predicated on representation by legal experts. Their services can be publicly mandated, but their operations are privately regulated? It's not as intuitive you suggest.

    It's just a thought experiment, really.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 6,151 ✭✭✭Thomas_S_Hunterson


    That's very witty, Dats_Right.

    Shops in direct competition operate to keep prices low. Barristers in closed competition keep prices high.

    Also, recourse to barristers is, in most legal matters of significance, inevitable. The entire legal system is predicated on representation by legal experts. Their services can be publicly mandated, but their operations are privately regulated? It's not as intuitive you suggest.

    It's just a thought experiment, really.

    Barristers are not in closed competition.

    There are many barristers on the bread-line. Incentive, if ever I heard it, to slash prices to gain work.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 652 ✭✭✭Jim_Are_Great


    Does that leave people, by and large, with an exclusive choice between successful barristers and affordable barristers?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 16 Lefournier


    dats_right wrote: »
    Sounds like populist nonsense! Two points of note; firstly, there is absolutely nothing stopping somebody who is instructing a barrister from negotiating fees, etc; secondly, one could argue that fees are somewhat 'capped' already by the system of taxation of costs.

    I think they have already reduced fees by 8% in line with all other contractors paid by the public purse. What is to stop them cutting fees by 50%. If an individual barrister chooses not to accept a thousand for a day's work, I think there will be no shortage of volunteers.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 2,139 ✭✭✭Jo King


    The 8% reduction is on legal aid fees which are paid by the state. Nothing to do with the o/p's question, which refers to fees paid by the public.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,268 ✭✭✭mountainyman


    There are 2 related points.

    [1] Irish Barristers are generally overpaid. After 10 years the average earnings at the Irish bar are significantly higher than in the UK.

    HOWEVER a salary cap is nonsense.

    Look outside this jurisdiction at the Ardagh Glass case in the UK. Ardagh glass is seeking to force quinn to destroy a glass recycling facility worth hundreds of millions. If there were 4 barristers a side the skill and guile of the one barrister was more than another and Quinn spent 1 million on barristers fees for 2 months work and won wouldn't that still be money well spent?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 652 ✭✭✭Jim_Are_Great


    There are 2 related points.

    [1] Irish Barristers are generally overpaid. After 10 years the average earnings at the Irish bar are significantly higher than in the UK.

    HOWEVER a salary cap is nonsense.

    Look outside this jurisdiction at the Ardagh Glass case in the UK. Ardagh glass is seeking to force quinn to destroy a glass recycling facility worth hundreds of millions. If there were 4 barristers a side the skill and guile of the one barrister was more than another and Quinn spent 1 million on barristers fees for 2 months work and won wouldn't that still be money well spent?

    I'm not sure I follow your second point.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 2,139 ✭✭✭Jo King


    There are 2 related points.

    [1] Irish Barristers are generally overpaid. After 10 years the average earnings at the Irish bar are significantly higher than in the UK.

    ?

    What is your source for this?


  • Legal Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 4,338 Mod ✭✭✭✭Tom Young


    Look outside this jurisdiction at the Ardagh Glass case in the UK. Ardagh glass is seeking to force quinn to destroy a glass recycling facility worth hundreds of millions. If there were 4 barristers a side the skill and guile of the one barrister was more than another and Quinn spent 1 million on barristers fees for 2 months work and won wouldn't that still be money well spent?

    I am not sure I get the point here either - however, there is one thing I will say, to vindicate rights or indeed have an intricate surgery, expertise is required and expertise costs money whether the matter be civil, criminal or surgical I know I'd hire the best I could afford.

    Before this one turns into a fight of affording Barristers, I often look at certain non-reputable newspaper reporting of Criminal Legal Aid, which is totally and completely one-sided. If the state decide to have and retain the best possible prisecutors on a case, then I can say that a person who is yet to be found guilty of an offence and is before the courts needs the best possible defence team that money can buy, even if it is and comes in the guises of a criminal legal aid brief.


    Tom


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,157 ✭✭✭Johnny Utah


    Not sure if it would fit well with the traditional wig and gown..........





































    18170001v1_350x350_Front.jpg


    :D


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 16 Lefournier


    Jo King wrote: »
    The 8% reduction is on legal aid fees which are paid by the state. Nothing to do with the o/p's question, which refers to fees paid by the public.

    OP was a comment on barristers' earnings in general and did not mention legal aid.

    Incidentally, the vast bulk of barristers' earnings are underwritten by the State, directly so when the DPP or some other State body is a party to the action (and somehow that party gets fixed with costs more often than not), but also indirectly in areas such as insurance which are essentially a product of a system underpinned by the State. It's time to stop the gravy train.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 140 ✭✭focusing


    Their fees are capped, if you just ask them what they'll be at the start of your case.


  • Registered Users Posts: 7,471 ✭✭✭maidhc


    Lefournier wrote: »
    OP was a comment on barristers' earnings in general and did not mention legal aid.

    Incidentally, the vast bulk of barristers' earnings are underwritten by the State, directly so when the DPP or some other State body is a party to the action (and somehow that party gets fixed with costs more often than not), but also indirectly in areas such as insurance which are essentially a product of a system underpinned by the State. It's time to stop the gravy train.

    I know a lot of barristers, any many of them are excellent. Most earn less than your average civil servant.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 16 Lefournier


    maidhc wrote: »
    I know a lot of barristers, any many of them are excellent. Most earn less than your average civil servant.

    After a few years practice, the typical working barrister is earning much more than an average civil servant (remember most civil servants are in clerical grades). In any event, do you know of a way to protect the low-paid while hitting the big earners and the incompetent?


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,157 ✭✭✭Johnny Utah


    Lefournier wrote: »
    After a few years practice, the typical working barrister is earning much more than an average civil servant (remember most civil servants are in clerical grades). In any event, do you know of a way to protect the low-paid while hitting the big earners and the incompetent?



    You're talking through your hoop there buddy. Troll.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 63 ✭✭marinbike


    There are 2 related points.

    [1] Irish Barristers are generally overpaid. After 10 years the average earnings at the Irish bar are significantly higher than in the UK.

    HOWEVER a salary cap is nonsense.

    Look outside this jurisdiction at the Ardagh Glass case in the UK. Ardagh glass is seeking to force quinn to destroy a glass recycling facility worth hundreds of millions. If there were 4 barristers a side the skill and guile of the one barrister was more than another and Quinn spent 1 million on barristers fees for 2 months work and won wouldn't that still be money well spent?

    Irish Barristers are among the most overpaid in Europe. They must take a salary cut. Their fees are exceptionally high, compared to Barristers on the continent.

    Most people have already taken a pay cut, I don't see why Irish Barristers should be any exception to this. Everyone is complaining about the high fees the legal profession are still charging. Rip-off


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 6,769 Mod ✭✭✭✭nuac


    As a solicitor have had many years experience of choosing barristers. Most clients want the best available for the particular case, not the cheapest.

    Barristers are in compeitition with each other for work. Capping their fees or income is nonsense. They don't get salaries.

    There have been some massive fees paid for tribunal work. That should not have happened and should have been better controlled.

    However tribunal work is a different planet from the normal daily legal grind


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 535 ✭✭✭Skopzz


    nuac wrote: »
    As a solicitor have had many years experience of choosing barristers. Most clients want the best available for the particular case, not the cheapest.

    Barristers are in compeitition with each other for work. Capping their fees or income is nonesense. They don't get salaries.

    There have been some massive fees paid for tribunal work. That should not have happened and should have been better controlled.

    However tribunal work is a different planet from the normal daily legal grind

    If I was looking for a barrister, I would look for the cheapest. Barristers are paid outrageous sums of money for the work they do. Lawyers are also grossly overpaid.

    Lawyers and Barristers should be forced to take a salary cap as well as a pay cut. Anything less that this constitutes greed. Thats whats keping prices so high in this country.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,168 ✭✭✭dats_right


    Skopzz wrote: »
    If I was looking for a barrister, I would look for the cheapest. Barristers are paid outrageous sums of money for the work they do. Lawyers are also grossly overpaid.

    Lawyers and Barristers should be forced to take a salary cap as well as a pay cut. Anything less that this constitutes greed. Thats whats keping prices so high in this country.

    Firstly, to clarify for you on your basic ignorances of the legal profession; a lawyer is a generic name for either a solicitor or barrister. In any event, either this is uninformed, ridiculous, nonsense or the poster is trolling. Whatever it is, it is not worthy of further comment.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 406 ✭✭johnnysmurfman


    How could you possibly do this? Particularly when barristers are sole traders and where the amount earned depends on the quantity and type of work done. Could you cap sole trader bricklayers' fees?

    A barrister can earn fees from so many sources that it would be very difficult to list them, and almost impossible to put in place a scale of fees. A planning law opinion might take 20 minutes or it could take 10 hours, how could you possibly say that the one that takes 10 hours will cost the same as the one that takes 20 minutes?

    Barristers are required to provide estimates of their fees in advance though so that is of assistance.

    Finally, why did you not suggest capping solicitors' fees when they are almost always higher?


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  • Registered Users Posts: 124 ✭✭servicecharge


    This is a crazy thread. Most barristers at 5 years experience would, at a good guess, earn an average of 60-100k a year.

    Our good friends in the ESB have average salaries larger than this. Middle ranking to senior gardai earn more than this.

    Likewise middle to senior manangement in most civil service posts earn similiar amounts.

    So why pick barristers? They have longer educations than all the above, the are also sole practitioners meaning it isn't an easy job and they don't have the pensions and associated benefits of all the above.

    If you want to cap pay I would suggest starting with the public sector.


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