The Secret Barrister- Defenceless and Indefensible

 Summary

In Chapter 6 of The Secret Barrister Stories of the law and how it is broken the writer talks about the solicitors who are responsible for the accused in the criminal justice system and the ones who have the hardest job. The Secret Barrister includes again many case studies in this chapter to see the effects different solicitors can have on different people. It is important to understand first though that the accused do not get themselves a barrister but they instead get a solicitor who then provides their clients with a Barrister at a later stage. 

Firstly, the writer starts the chapter clearing the fact that the Barristers do not do as much as the solicitors and the solicitors are the real heroes in many cases. This is because the solicitors are the ones who will get out of bed early in the morning (like at 12 am or 3 am for example) to attend your police interview, they will come and see you in custody, they will look at all the statements, they will put the case together, they will have a conference with you and they will look at all the evidence amongst other things. Basically, they find all the information possibly as both they and the Barristers need as much information as possible to do their jobs properly. When the solicitors do their job properly, they should include all their findings in the Brief which the Barristers will then read through before the case to get an insight.

You will probably agree that is a lot of work, especially when considering the budget cuts and all that and when the solicitors are paid by legal aid they are often underpaid earning less than the minimum salary. In both the magistrates' court and crown court the solicitors are paid a fixed amount and they are paid more in the magistrates' court than the crown court and in some cases when at the crown court they are earning the equivalent of £3 an hour which is a shockingly small hourly wage. It is clear that these solicitors despite all they go through with an average of 23 hours per case for preparing are not getting the money they receive and so this again is more evidence that our criminal justice system is broken as the writer claims so himself.

Finally, the last point I am going to make, remembering that in this chapter the writer seems to be talking about legal aid solicitors, is the problem with bad solicitors. The Secret Barrister concludes this chapter discussing about the solicitors who either do the bare minimum or in some cases nothing at all. The writer claimed that in some cases he had to defend at the last minute there was no information in the brief from the solicitors and that their clients had learning disabilities or physiatric disorders which made them more vulnerable. The writer mentioned how these solicitors never went to talk to their clients in custody, did not get any evidence and also always told them to plead guilty even if they were not. The Secret Barrister even sent a note to the solicitors they were involved in with a simple checklist for the two-week adjournment and was furious to see they did not get the information required. This is terrible how these solicitors think it is ok to take advantage of the most vulnerable in our society and this is despicable!

As I have mentioned in my previous summaries on this book, I have only mentioned some key points which stood out to me in this chapter and I have not wrote about them in as much detail as the secret barrister so I highly encourage you to read his book for yourself. It is evident throughout the book that our legal system is broken and it is a great thing that The Secret Barrister writes about his experiences making the public aware of these issues which we would otherwise discover if we ever find ourselves in court which according to the Secret Barrister is very likely. I have not mentioned this before but The Secret Barrister is an award-winning blogger and I would highly suggest that you visited The Secret Barrister's blog where he frequently updates us on the criminal justice system. Finally, please be sure to visit this blog regularly so you never miss any blog posts and I would really appreciate it if you could either donate money to this blog via Paypal or buy me a book using one of the buttons found at the side of this blog.