Industrial action which has ignited a summer of confrontation across public services, transport networks and among people working in poorly-paid jobs has also inspired Britain’s legal professionals to strike in defence of living standards.

On 18 July Tim Kiely, a criminal barrister living in East Ham, made his way to the Palace of Westminster in full court dress to meet with his MP, Sir Stephen Timms.

He was one of around 150 members of the Criminal Bar Association (CBA) who gathered that day to lobby their MPs on the state of the justice system, as their strike action entered its fourth week.

MPs who attended were briefed on how years of chronic underfunding has led to a growing backlog of 58,000 cases, a crumbling court infrastructure and a shrinking pool of lawyers.

Criminal barristers in their first three years of practice, they heard, earn a median income amounting to £6.25 per hour, for a 40 hour week, which is significantly below the minimum wage.

As a result young people, many of them traditionally less well represented at the Bar, especially those from black and minority ethnic backgrounds, women and people with disabilities, are simply leaving the profession.

A quarter of specialists have left in the last five years, including 40 percent of its most junior practitioners in the last year alone.

At minimum, the CBA and its members argue, an urgent injection of cash is needed to raise the fees earned by barristers whose work is funded by Legal Aid, as well as an independent pay-review body and proper remuneration for written work and cases involving pre-recorded evidence from vulnerable witnesses.

Following their discussion, Timms raised with Dominic Raab, the Secretary of State for Justice, the issue of a promised fee-rise by way of Statutory Instrument, and whether this would also apply to the current backlog of cases.

Tim Kiely said: “I appreciate the time taken by Stephen Timms to address this issue. But there is always more to be done. The fight goes on.”

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