The prospect of criminal legal aid lawyers unionising – a move that would enable them to undertake full-blown strike action – remains on the cards after it emerged that two practitioner groups met union leaders last week.
Appetite to unionise has been growing among solicitors since they saw long-running strike action by their self-employed criminal bar colleagues see the Ministry of Justice, under then justice secretary Brandon Lewis, offer a better remuneration package.
Unable to ‘strike’ due to obligations under their government contracts, solicitors have instead been boycotting poorly paid work such as burglary cases.
However, following its annual meeting last October, the Criminal Law Solicitors Association decided to commission advice from counsel on forming a union for legal aid lawyers.
Today, the CLSA and the London Criminal Courts Solicitors Association announced that their leadership teams jointly met with unions last Friday for ‘very productive talks’.
‘That dialogue will continue in the coming weeks and further updates to the membership will follow at an appropriate time,’ the associations added.
The associations did not reveal which unions they met. Last year the GMB set up a branch for what it said are dozens of members who are judges. The PCS’s members include legal advisers and court associates, who have been striking over the rollout of the Common Platform system, which has been beset by problems since it was introduced in 2020.
Should legal aid lawyers unionise, the prospect of industrial action over legal aid fees will increase.
The Law Society, the main representative body for the solicitor profession, told the House of Commons justice select committee that it was better for the government to have solicitors feeling militant over legal aid fees than solicitors quietly quitting the sector in large numbers. The Society has threatened to sue lord chancellor Dominic Raab if he does not increase legal aid rates for solicitors by the minimum 15% recommended by the goverment-commissioned criminal legal aid review.
In a separate move, firm owners with criminal legal aid contracts, whose needs and requirements differ to those of employees, are looking to set up their own representative body. The Criminal Legal Aid Contractors Association would operate more like a trade association. It would not be a trade union.
