What effect will this have on the position of barristers?

Indo404

LAW FIRM Maples and Calder is planning to shake up the market for legal services here by bringing courtroom advocacy functions traditionally carried out by junior counsel in-house to eliminate duplication of roles.

The firm believes this could save clients up to 20 per cent of their trial costs.

The advocacy service will be offered to clients involved in High Court and Commercial Court litigation.

Maples is thought to be the first commercial law firm in Ireland to do this and other firms might follow suit.

It might also signal the beginning of a turf war between barristers and solicitors, especially as the new Legal Services Bill is expected to remove the sharp distinction between the two arms of the legal profession here.

There are currently more than 2,300 barristers in the State.

Over the past 18 months, Maples and Calder has hired five barristers who have served as junior counsel to its advocacy unit, which is being led by partner Dudley Solan. The new hires are training to become solicitors.

Mr Solan said the firm plans to grow this team from within by encouraging its solicitors to “develop these [advocacy] skills”.

“We have established this group so that our services don’t stop at the courtroom door,” Mr Solan said. “For clients this will result in better in-house service and less duplication.”

At present, law firms brief junior counsel and, where required, senior counsel, to litigate in the higher courts on behalf of their clients.

The preparation work is undertaken by the solicitors in the firm and then passed on to barristers. The solicitors invest time in getting to grips with the factual background, evidence, documents and legal issues relevant to whatever issue is at dispute.

Maples believe that for the majority of cases in the higher courts it should not be obligatory or necessary to duplicate work through employing a junior counsel.

All of the major English and Welsh law firms have advocacy teams in-house.

Maples said clients would still be offered the option to employ junior counsel if they wish.

Legal fees are a hot topic in Ireland at present and have been a focus for the EU-IMF “troika”, with reform a condition of Ireland’s bailout. The National Competitiveness Council recently found legal fees are more than 12 per cent higher than in 2006.

seb65

I think it's time to let Barristers form their own partnerships/firms

nuac

An independent bar is a major advantage to our legal system.

At present the most experienced and skilled barristers are available to the clients of any solicitor.

If we go the Maples route, the best will become tied to particular firms and won't be available "on the cabrank"

Solicitors and barristers work differently.

shaneybaby

It's hard enough to become good at just one of the professions let alone be a jack of all trades, advocacy requires a lot of different skills to that of a day to day solicitor.

Essentially, from what i gather above, they're really only employing barristers in solicitors firms and using them that way. Maples have been agressive enough with their expansion (Dudley Solan and his team came from A&L http://www.thelawyer.com/maples-dublin-raids-als-litigation-team/1002635.article) and this is just another way to get a foothold in that market. Doing a decent job of it too to be fair.

Kosseegan

It is hard to see this working long term or becoming widespread. Drafting is quite a precise art. It is sickening to see a case fail because of some element missing from the pleadings. Years of work can go down the drain. If the barristers are in-house, who will settle the pleadings? Are silks prepared to settle pleadings where no Junior from the Law Library has drafted them?
Will the costs adjudicator allow the fees for solicitor drafted pleadings? What will the effect be on their PI cover? Where will these in-house drafters get precedents?
In the UK the practice is that solicitors draft pleadings and the bar do the advocacy work. The ration of solicitors to barristers is higher than here. That said, there are numerous precedents available in England and the law has been codified and is more coherent.

dazza21ie

Kosseegan wrote: »

It is hard to see this working long term or becoming widespread. Drafting is quite a precise art. It is sickening to see a case fail because of some element missing from the pleadings. Years of work can go down the drain. If the barristers are in-house, who will settle the pleadings? Are silks prepared to settle pleadings where no Junior from the Law Library has drafted them?
Will the costs adjudicator allow the fees for solicitor drafted pleadings? What will the effect be on their PI cover? Where will these in-house drafters get precedents?
In the UK the practice is that solicitors draft pleadings and the bar do the advocacy work. The ration of solicitors to barristers is higher than here. That said, there are numerous precedents available in England and the law has been codified and is more coherent.

Just because the barrister is in house doesn't mean it will lose the abililty to draft.

On taxation solicitors who advocate apparently do get higher costs where they don't use counsel.

Larger firms spend alot on their precedent banks, they could just extend it further to include draft proceedings

Avatargh

Not much in fairness.

Generally, commercial cases and commercial clients tend to work with "big name" barristers who would attract a reasonably high level of fee income.

There is no way that these in-house team positions are being offered on that income. Thus, the kinds of counsel who generally are valued for their input into these cases won't be the kind hired. Of course, someone can say "its only drafting". That's a fair point, but even though drafting is paid little, that's a flaw in the system in that the "great mind" is usually the one that comes up with the idea at the start that wins the case for the Plaintiff or destroys the case for the Defendant.

In that case, you have to ask whether or not these positions can be filled with the kind of people clients would otherwise want to prepare their cases only insofar as that I mean you won't attract the very counsel you want in the end-game. It will always come back to this - the kinds of people who will fill these positions won't be the kinds of people who the very firm hiring them has habitually briefed. And of course, you may get genius at low cost and if you do, brilliant. I would think, however, that it would be interesting to see the kind of actual litigation experience and quality you can get when the aim is costs savings like this. I find it hard to see how a litigator with as they say Commercial Court experience would be on such an income as to make this attractive. I could be wrong.

Anyway, the cost of drafting is miniscule in the context of litigation costs. Even the top, top, top mind can't charge (and expect to tax) high on drafting so the savings on this element can't be near the 20%.

Avatargh

dazza21ie wrote: »

Larger firms spend alot on their precedent banks, they could just extend it further to include draft proceedings

And that is precisely the way to end up walking into trouble. If you can't draft a set of proceedings without a precedent you shouldn't be doing it in the first place!

Milk & Honey

At the moment the vast majority of drafting is done on credit by Junior Counsel. It might not be paid for years. Doing it in-house means paying for it within the month by way of salary. There also seems to be an assumption that the client will decide whether or not they want Junior Counsel. What about the Senior Counsel? I doubt that too many Senior Counsel think it acceptable to be supported by an in house counsel rather than a member of the law Library. There is always juggling around with other cases and getting dates and making applications to judges. It would not be feasible for a firm to send a solicitor down to the courts to ask to have a date changed. Time and again counsel have to meet in the law Library and go to a court together to have something done on consent.
The chances of in house counsel being able to do this are remote. In house drafting by some solicitors is not going to decimate the bar.

johnnyskeleton

Avatargh wrote: »

Anyway, the cost of drafting is miniscule in the context of litigation costs. Even the top, top, top mind can't charge (and expect to tax) high on drafting so the savings on this element can't be near the 20%.

I assume the clients that they have will agree to an hourly rate to be paid in advance or that the client is a fairly reliable payer. If it takes 3 hours to draft a pleading at a fairly standard professional hourly rate for this type of firm, the fees for this will be a multiple of what a barrister would normally charge. So I don't really see how this will actually be a saving for the client, because things like drafting, motions, preparing booklets of authorities, legal research etc will probably cost more on an hourly basis than on a job lot fee.

I also assume that for opinion work and for advocacy on the day of trial they will still brief independent barristers so that they can avoid the insurance risk.

Maybe I'm cynical, but I don't see anything about this saving the customer money, but I can see it being more expensive and a great business move from the solicitor's point of view.