Lawyers’ Self-image and Remuneration

Legally aided criminal defence lags behind many other professions in terms of remuneration. The 2009 Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (Office for National Statistics, 2009) reveals that legal aid solicitors earn an average salary of around £25,000 pa, decidedly towards the bottom of the public sector pay list (see Rogers, 2009).

This devaluation of the legal aid solicitor's status, though, was not a burden shared equally by brethren lawyers in other fields. Indeed, Moorhead (2004: 173­76) reports a survey commissioned by the Legal Aid Practitioners Group and the Law Society, which showed such lawyers have been quick to compare their position relative to other lawyers, and feel that they come out short. This view is substanti­ated by the final year of the Law Society cohort study (Duff et al, 2000: 43), which shows that solicitors in City firms receive twice the average wage of those in high street firms within a couple of years of qualifying. Reacting to the aforementioned public sector pay research, McPartland (2009), writing in The Lawyer, lambasts this situation, frustratedly citing the £25,000 pa figure in the light of trainee solicitors at City firms starting on £40,000 pa salaries.

The lawyers in my study were acutely aware ofthis financial situation. Throughout the research, I was privy to seemingly boundless levels of griping and grumbling concerning the lawyers' lesser levels of remuneration compared with their peers. During the participant observation, I often recorded in my notebooks that this was the main subject of conversation. Lawyers bemoaned these circumstances with such frequency to anyone who would listen - one another, prosecutors, other court staff, clients and especially, it felt, to me - that I eventually stopped recording it through a combination of saturation and tedium. This was duly reinforced by the formal interviews as the majority, 28 out of the 35, expressed concerns that their rates of remuneration were unfair when compared with other professionals. This viewpoint was to be found across the firms, and can be appreciated from the follow­ing quotes:

I'm earning less money now than I was earning ten years ago. Less money! It's incredible. I don't really think many people would stay in a profession where they earn less money. Once upon a time you could afford to pay people a salary of, say, £25,000 a year, for a qualified solicitor with a couple of years of experience. Back then, that was favourable, compared with what teachers or nurses or policemen would earn. Now, I think some­body who had got all their qualifications, been through university, law school, with debts of £30,000 to £40,000 will still only be picking up about £25,000 a year. Whereas, if they decided to teach, to go into the National Health Service, if they went into social work, they're going to earn similar money without having to do, necessarily, the extra work. They'd also probably have a better career structure.

(Windom, solicitor, Swining MacSage, INT) The financial rewards have been limited for some considerable time. It is not worth doing this job for the rewards that we get... In terms of doctors who [we used to enjoy] a rea­sonable parity with in the early 1990s, in particular; they are probably now partners in GP practices and they are probably earning double what we earn.

(Garland, partner, Sosford and Banger, INT)

Many lawyers, though, were more sensitive still to the way in which they badly trailed other branches of the legal profession. This stark reality was one that they saw drummed into them early on in their careers, and reinforced by later experi­ence of other lawyers, as in the following:

When I did my LPC [Legal Practice Course], they always give the impression that if you’re any good at law, you’ll go into something commercial, something higher paid.

(Annie, solicitor, Radcliffe and Musk, INT)

The criminal profession is struggling to bring new blood on board. In part, that’s because the law schools are advising the law students not to do crime, for financial reasons... and so many of the old criminal defence solicitors I used to know are leaving. There are lots of advocates who have moved onto other areas of law because they can’t afford to be doing it.

(Gordon, solicitor, Radford Hope, INT)

People are just leaving because their contemporaries have gone into different areas oflaw, and they can see them earning a lot more money and not working as hard; the temptation is clear - especially if they want to start a family.

(Norma, solicitor, Radford Hope, INT)

Considering their peers, the substance of their complaint appeared to revolve around the supposition that their remuneration did not match the high status they merited as professionals. Money does not simply provide the ability to buy things, it acts so as to confer respect - and these lawyers clearly had neither the requisite amount of stuff or deference that they supposed they should. This is reflected in the following quote:

There’s so much hype that the legal aid budget costs us £2 billion a year. I don’t know what the total defence budget is, but it’s a huge spend on just a couple of ships and submarines. That £2 billion wouldn’t keep the NHS [National Health Service] going for five or six days! Yet it’s considered too much for us? It makes the mind boggle.

(James, senior partner, Radford Hope, INT)

Most of these lawyers understood that they were not valued as high status profes­sionals in financial terms. Perhaps, they felt that their very designation as profes­sionals was challenged. This is understandable on considering Larson (1977: 4-8) and his modelling of ‘the professional project' that, in large part, is characterised by the ambition of establishing market primacy. As such, Larson (1977: xvii) suggests that, ‘professionalization is thus an attempt to translate one order ofscarce resources - special knowledge and skills - into another - social and economic rewards'. So can be seen the image of the profession which Collier (2005: 55-56) reveals to be dis­seminated by the more successful commercial firms to prospective trainees; to be a legal professional is fundamentally linked with all the achievement of high remu­neration. In this manner, my lawyers represented something akin to failures in the professional project, certainly compared with their peers. This understandably elic­ited both pain and discomfort, as the economic value placed on the lawyers did not match that of their self-image, conceptualised as the ego-ideal. In order to reach towards that glimpse of perfection, it appears that the lawyers had to set themselves different rules and standards. Rather than attaining the high status that they saw professionals to possess through financial remuneration, lawyers elevated the prominence of their social agenda. It was through enacting this that they could meet their ego-ideal and achieve the feelings of pride, value and accomplishment while avoiding the pain and discomfort they would otherwise experience as eco­nomic failures.