pslewis

And I quote:-

"Qualified barristers can be paid anything from £25,000 to £300,000.

Salaries for those with over ten years’ experience can rise to £1,000,000.

Typical salaries for barristers in the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) or the Government Legal Service (GLS) : £30,000-£90,000"

£27,000 would be for a trainee of course.

What I can see is £90,000 - £300,000 - and £1,000,000 however!!

dpb

Feel sorry for certain sectors who not getting legal aid

Not soo much for the lawyers


But most of this is another golden trolling opportunity for lewis.

ritchie21

How dare you make allegations like this against me without any foundation whatsoever?! You really are a nasty individual.

For the record, the accounts of self-employed LEGAL AID barristers (which is what I am) are the easiest in the world to check given that all of our pay comes from the Government. I do not undertake privately paid work. So to fiddle as you are suggesting I do, is not possible. We are constantly under scrutiny and any anomaly (especially given that we complete VAT returns every three months) would be investigated.

No, my husband is not on my books nor has he ever been. Not even when he had 18 months off work fighting cancer. No I don't have a lease car. I can't afford to commit myself to monthly payments for a lease car seeing as I never know what I am going to be paid each month. I have a 9 year old focus if you must know.

The salaries you quote are a) general and b) employed figures. I am not an employed barrister so the figures you quote for CPS barristers mean nothing-they relate to barristers employed by CPS and are not relevant to the protest yesterday. You seem to choose to keep ignoring the fact that you need to focus on the earnings of CRIMINAL LAW barristers and not barristers generally.

mamoon2

I'm just gonna put it out there..... If you are only earning that much and can't even afford a decent motor, you clearly aren't that good at your job.

My step brother was paid £40k in first year, £80k in second year and is in the £120k+ bracket now in his third year. He's 27 and works in London.

ritchie21

Mamoon - is your brother a barrister practising in criminal law?

I am good at my job-I am continuously busy. If I was crap I'd be able to have more than one week a year off as I'd never work.

I don't get to choose my pay-it gets dictated for me. I take a case and get paid a set fee by the government.

I'm not based in London. I have however just finished a 3 1/2 month trial in London (where I had to pay all of my own travel/accommodation etc expenses from my own pocket) and was one of 3 of 8 Counsel who was successful with their case.

hodgy0_2

Not everyone is motivated solely by money

tony de wonderful

Some huge salaries.

mamoon2

No not criminal. Corporate law.

You can claim the expenses back though can't you?

ritchie21

Ah see Mamoon that explains it. We are talking about salaries in Criminal Law not corporate. Nobody who goes into Criminal Law goes in for the money!

As for the expenses-travel I can only claim a proportion back and I can't claim hotel fees back.

Hodgy - you are dead right. If I went into this job for the money I'd have gone into a different type of law. I do this because I hope that what I do goes a tiny way to making a difference.

mamoon2

Fair play.

pslewis

So ..... let me get this straight.

1. You only get 1 week off per year.

2. You only earn £27,000 ..... and out of that you have to pay all your own costs.

3. You can only claim part of your expenses.

4. You have to charge VAT - I thought this only applied on a larger turnover than £27,000?

5. You live on the poverty line because you love your work and want to make the place we all live a safer place.

Now, you are either an Angel ....... or a devil - as there is clearly something wrong somewhere .......

pslewis

Quote:-

" If your turnover of VAT taxable goods and services supplied within the UK for the previous 12 months is more than the current registration threshold of £79,000, or you expect it to go over that figure in the next 30 days alone, you must register for VAT"

So, your turnover is greater than £79,000 ...... ??

And, out of that, you receive just £27,000 before expenses and having just 1 week off per year?

pslewis

Barrister Income from Public Sources 2012/2013 states:-

"The mean fee income for the 4,931 barristers is £72,000, and the median is
£56,000"

"A number of barristers only undertake a small amount of work and are
unlikely to be spending full time on publicly funded criminal advocacy.

24% of barristers within the list earn less than £20,000 (due to a very small amount of work being undertaken).

Of those earning more than £100,000 this equates to more than 25% of the total number of barristers.

0-10k ............. 761 Barristers - working on very few cases.
10-20k ............ 421
20-30k ............ 362
30-40k 366
40-50k 345
50-60k 354
60-70k 333
70-80k 276
80-90k 225
90-100k 213

100-110k 190 << I'm guessing you are here, working 51 weeks a year solidly.

110-120k 168
120-130k 141
130-140k 120
140-150k 105
150-160k 75
160-170k 63
170-180k 70
180-190k 54
190-200k 39
200-250k 135
250-300k 59
300-400k 36
400-500k 14
500-600k 4
600-700k 2

Total Number of Barristers ....... 4,931

jonc

The only thing wrong here is your trolling. Your only contribution to this forum these days generally centers on criticizing the earnings of others in various professions whilst you boast about how rich you are (yeah right!!) and how much you earned a vast fortune making money by building weapons used for maiming and killing people on the pretense that you do it to protect our armed forces. It used to be funny but it's wearing a bit thin now, change the record.

pslewis

Let me ask you just one question jonc ......

Do you believe (genuinely) that a Barrister working 51 weeks per year earns just £27,000 per year and out of that comes tax, NI, pension, costs, expenses and other disbursments?

If you have any suspicions or doubts then I'm not trolling at all, I am asking questions as I simply cannot believe what the Barristers are telling us!!

And, as we know, you can trust a Lawyer!

dpb

Really? !

I used to do some work (repaired his sails) for bloke who had firm solicitors in Tottenham, they were criminal lawyers . He quipped that he would take them on only if he knew they were guilty.
In fact I crossed the Atlantic on his next yacht (Swan 65) , 1996.
He was obnoxious, especially to the ladies, when drunk. ( not physically)

hodgy0_2

I understand Ritchie, and salute your dedication and obvious commitment to what you do - and I am sure you (and your colleagues) do make a difference


A very good friend is one of Europe's top patent lawyers, and yes they are in a totally different league

If every one was just motivated by money the would simply become a plumber and route water from A to B

pslewis

I'm not motivated by money ..... hell I would work somewhere else, like the Mobile Phone Design Industry!

Rather than protect you all so that you can sleep at night ..... I'm really, really, really generous and kind like that.

But, I draw the line at doing 10 years training, working 51 weeks a year and accepting £27,000 a year Gross!!!!

Out of that I have to pay all my expenses .............

Yeah, Mother Teresa would have thought twice!!

donny andi

iTrader: (3)

Why bring plumbing into the topic?
You obviously know a little more than me as I'm currently charging/earning what I was 10 years ago .....10 years ago it was all mine , now I pay a labourer out of 'my' money.

sean999

I've recently gone through an injury accident claim, none fault where my car was written off. the solicitors appointed by my insurers wrote to me at the start of the claim, details their qualifications etc and the fact they charge £185.00 per hour

pslewis

£185 an hour is fair for their training and position.

That equates out to about £27,000 a year after taking into account they work 51 weeks per annum ............ oh, hold on a minute ....................

pslewis

£185 an hour, 40 hour week = £7,400 * 51 weeks = £377,400 .... pass to Barrister for correction = £27,000. Yep, that's it, £27,000 .... let's tell the world we are struggling!!

tony de wonderful

Well it's all paid for through insurance so they can almost charge what they want? Amirite?

jonc

No more than I believe that you're a grey haired geriatric being paid a generous wage for what you in an industry where corruption is widespread and systemic and swans around in a neck snapping Civic Diesel.

pslewis

Good, you had me worried for a minute ..... I thought you actually believed the Barrister!

I do have a neck snapping Civic ......

ritchie21

Pete I've explained countless times on this thread and others how I get paid. I'm not going to feed your trolling about that anymore.

VAT-I have to charge it.

The figures quoted per hour are (and I say it for the umpteenth time) firstly for solicitors and secondly for those who don't practice in Criminal Law.

pslewis

Yes, I have seen that you have to charge VAT.

I'll leave your case now, but, come on, you must admit that such a highly regarded profession in time taken to train terms and in responsibility terms gives the impression that it should be well up in the pay rewards?

The fact that it is not is quite a shock to most ........ you know and I know that £27,000 a year for 51 weeks solid hard work is a disgracefully small reward. Well done for doing it all for such small remuneration.

pflowers

FYI the £79k vat threshold is the amount where you have to register for vat.

You can register even if you only turn over £1k per annum.

It makes sense to do so if your vatable expenses exceed your vatable receipts.

So being vat registered has no relevance to your income.

Leslie

If they cant take a joke they should not have joined!

Les

JWalle

I am loving reading through this thread. I work as a barristers clerk in a civil set. I understand what Ritchie21 is saying and its nail on the head. People that instruct solicitors which instruct barristers (only several barristers can be instructed directly, which is a course they pay for and don't claim back) have no idea what goes on behind the scenes. Don't think because you watch Silk that you know what goes on either! The Government which pays barristers (and Judges) go through fee notes/timesheets with a fine comb.