Ministers to meet law society chief over criticisms

The head of the Law Society has called for an urgent meeting with ministers in a bid to stop them attacking solicitors.

The move follows comments made last week by David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, who warned lawyers to stop using the courts to help win "pyrrhic" victories which had no practical benefits for their clients.

The Law Society president, David McIntosh, described the comments as "deplorable", and said similar language used by Mr Blunkett's predecessor, Jack Straw, was "over the top".

Mr McIntosh said: "I don't think these knee-jerk comments do any good ... Jack Straw called criminal lawyers fat cats and they are not even plump.''

Speaking at the annual solicitors' conference in Birmingham over the weekend, Mr McIntosh urged ministers to meet him and solicitors from defence and prosecution organisations at his private offices in central London so that they could "get a dialogue going".

Mr McIntosh said he wanted to dispel the myth that all solicitors do is defend the guilty and prosecute the innocent.

In his address to the 500 delegates, he said: "Never again let there be news reports that solicitors are too embarrassed to admit their callings at dinner parties... We need to take the same pride in what the rest of our profession does as we do in our own performance.''

Since Mr Blunkett took office in June he has shown his willingness to lay down the law to judges and lawyers. In a speech to an audience at the Civitas think-tank in London, he said: "I am appealing to lawyers to work with us in finding not just procedural, pyrrhic victories. Lawyers are paid to represent clients but if that is all they are required to do then I think we should all say so.''

He went on: "If it is a trade, let us say so, if it is a profession, then let's have a debate on the relationship between the criminal justice system representatives and accountability and democratic processes.''

Mr Blunkett is one of the few Home Secretaries in recent years who is not a lawyer. He told the audience last week: "If society comes to believe that the legal process is geared more towards protecting the perpetrators of crime rather than the victims, all efforts to protect those wrongfully accused and convicted of crimes are also under threat.''