Barristers who pay “squalid backhanders” to solicitors to be given court cases have been attacked as charlatans behaving like drug cheats in sport.
Alistair MacDonald, QC, chairman of the Bar Council, said that such referral payments were “objectionable” in every way and a “scandalous misuse of public funds”. He called for a statutory ban on the payments as the only way to tackle them, in a speech to the body’s annual conference.
“Like the drug cheats in sport, who are always one step ahead of those performing the tests, there are no depths to the ingenious means by which these charlatans would seek to dress up their referral fees,” he said.
Cuts to legal aid fees are said to have spawned a growing black market in money paid by some barristers to the solicitors who give them briefs for crown court work.
Solicitors may be keen to receive the payments as they struggle to meet overheads, and in some cases impose them under the guise of administration fees. Ministers are consulting on proposals to outlaw the backhanders.
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The kickbacks are usually a percentage taken from the legal aid fees that barristers earn for the case and may range from £100 to £2,000. The true extent of the market in referral fees is unknown as they are already prohibited by professional codes of practice.