In 1996 the world’s first flip phone was launched by Motorola. It was also the last time civil legal aid fees were increased.
With the government proposing to implement an increase for some legal aid fees in autumn 2025 following a consultation earlier this year, we asked barrister Jo Delahunty KC how the underfunded system has impacted the wellbeing of those who work within it.
Question: How would you sum up what legal aid lawyers do and why they do it?
Jo says: “We are the legal emergency rescue team.
“Civil legal aid cases cover the breadth of human experience, including homelessness, domestic abuse, children in care, immigration, discrimination and poor quality of health care”.
“We come to the defence of people when they're most in need, when they're most frightened. We do it because we fundamentally believe in the principle that every person deserves representation at the highest calibre, and we do it because we know that if we don't, there's going to be more injustice in the world.
“We do it through vocation even though the pay is appalling by comparison with privately paid work.”
Question: What is the emotional cost of the work legal aid lawyers do?
Jo says: “It takes a heavy toll on us and our families. We have to walk in the footsteps of our client to understand their experiences, to be able to translate them into evidence.
“That means you have to engage with the detail of their lives in a way which means you can't be protected from what you're going to see: once we’ve learnt it, we can’t forget it, once we’ve seen it, we can’t unsee it. Images are burnt into our retinas, memories into our brains, therein lies many a cause of secondary trauma.”
Question: Do you think that the impact of secondary trauma, PTSD and burnout is well understood across the Bar?
Jo says: “No, but I think it is better than it has been.
“One of the reasons why I give the talks I do is because I just felt there were too many things that were experienced but not talked about openly: mental health, sexual harassment, judicial bullying and more recently neurodiversity and burnout.
“I want to use my platform to make the unspoken spoken. I'm not for one moment claiming the credit for it. It's a chorus, it's not a solo.
“But the more of us who spoke about it openly, the less individually shameful it became to experience it, the more it was acknowledged by the profession, and the conversation moved onto recognising the need for change. There's no point just talking about it.
“I want that action and I want to see its results. I'm fed-up waiting. If we look at the work the Bar Council has done, they have been very proactive in taking up issues. I have criticisms of other parts of the Bar, but I think the Bar Council is our heartbeat.”
In January, the Ministry of Justice launched a consultation into increasing legal aid fees for housing and immigration work, proposing an increase that would equal a £20 million boost once fully implemented. Fees for other civil legal aid categories are also under consideration.
Fees haven't been increased since 1996, yet in that time the consumer price index (CPI) has increased 96.8% meaning any proposed increases will still fall far short of bringing fees back to 1996 levels in real terms.
Question: What is it like operating in a system that has been underfunded for decades?
Jo says: “It's soul destroying.
“We're angry, we're frustrated. We're fed up, we're being kept waiting. We want someone to fight for us in the way we're fighting for others.
“The issues caused from the cyber attack on the Legal Aid Agency has been insult upon injury. You’ve got mortgages to be paid, you have rent to be paid, you've got food bills to be paid, you've got children to be looked after and ongoing expense to get to court to represent vulnerable clients. The bills keep coming in yet payment we are due, for work we have done, isn't.
“This cyber attack, which has crippled the payments system, will have a legacy that's going to take too long to resolve. Add to that the burden of taxation on aged debt then we magnify our financial jeopardy.
“That impact on someone’s wellbeing is hard to quantify.”
Question: What changes do you want to see in the system to better protect the wellbeing of those who work within it?
Jo says: “The issues are systemic. One of the reasons I talk about the legal aid Bar is because there's a qualitative difference in wellbeing between the hidden well-paid, traditionally better-off commercial sector and privately paid family work compared, for example, to all legal aid sectors.
The Barristers’ Working Lives survey from 2023 showed barristers practising in commercial law reported the highest average overall wellbeing with family law and the criminal Bar reporting significantly lower overall wellbeing than all other practice areas.
Jo adds: “The burden of the work that we do is borne by those who are least well paid.
“And so we need to be paid for what we do, not for what we're prepared to tolerate. Our pay needs to be reviewed.
“If it's not we will not continue to do what we are trained to do and we cannot expect newcomers, with the burden of debt they carry from further education, to fill the gap when we leave.
“My colleagues are the reason I stay. Whether they are solicitors, juniors, silks, legal aid executives, court clerks, ushers or (the majority of) our judges. They are incredible people. They make the intolerable bearable.
“If you ask me what needs to change, it's not us.
“We are the solution, not the problem.
“We are fed up being taken for granted, that needs to change before irreversible disillusionment sets in - it may already have done.”
Professor Jo Delahunty KC was called to the Bar in 1986, took silk in 2006, became a Recorder in 2009, a Bencher of Middle Temple in 2011, was Gresham Professor of Law 2016-20, and appointed Emeritus Gresham Professor of Law in 2020. Jo has a silk practice at 4 Paper Buildings, Temple. Jo has won multiple industry award for her silk and campaigning work.
She was among 100 women to be awarded the Freedom of the City of London to mark the centenary of the Representation of the People Act 1918. Jo was named as one of Middle Temple’s 100 Women of Distinction in the Past 100 Years to mark the centenary of Women joining the profession in 2019. Jo is an Ambassador to Bridging the Bar and Patron of the Association of Women Barristers.