We're not fat cats, say pounds 266,000-a-year QCs

LEADING BARRISTERS tried to shed their "fat cat" label yesterday by publishing a survey that claimed Queen's Counsel usually earned up to only pounds 266,000 a year.

The survey, released by the Bar Council, included the responses of almost 200 chambers, from more than 400 approached. It said some lawyers made as little as pounds 17,000. Most QCs were said to earn between pounds 163,000 and pounds 266,000. However, Mark Green, director of the BDO Stoy Hayward professional practice group, which did the survey, sasid the analysis had lopped off 23 per cent for overheads.

The findings contrast sharply with figures published last year by the Lord's Chancellor's Department (LCD), which caused a storm by claiming top QCs earned net fees of more than pounds 500,000 in civil legal aid and pounds 300,000 for criminal legal aid.

Daniel Brennan QC, chairman of the Bar Council, was one of the barristers named by the LCD as a top earner. Yesterday, he said that he hoped the Bar's figures would end the public perception of barristers as greedy. He said: "Ninety per cent of the Bar's earnings are in the reasonable range. They are far less than what ministers were giving as barristers' earnings." He said the other 10 per cent represented the top fee earners, whose earnings were "commensurate with their skills".

Top silks such as George Carman QC and Michael Beloff QC are estimated to earn approaching pounds 1m in private work.

The survey showed that the fee-earning figures were offset by the long delays barristers faced in waiting to get paid - an average of five and a half months. But it showed a profession enjoying boom times in an industry worth between pounds 1.2bn and 1.4bn, and 32 per cent of barristers expected their fees to jump by between 10 and 20 per cent next year.