‘If I wanted to get rich, I wouldn’t be doing criminal legal aid work - I want to get paid promptly for what I do’

In his former life as a publican, Maurice Regan heard many tales of human misery at the bar counter.

“I spent a career listening to people’s sad stories; the difference now is I can try and help them,” he says.

A solicitor on the criminal legal aid panel for 10 years now, he estimates about 60 per cent of his clients are vulnerable for reasons including mental health issues and alcohol and other addictions.

“Sometimes it’s hard to get any type of help for them, so if I can do that, I will,” he says.

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Regan worked in his family’s Grasshopper Inn in Clonee, Co Meath, before he qualified as a solicitor in 2011. His Trim-based one-man practice is “99 per cent legal aid and 1 per cent family law”.

He is very critical of how legal aid system is designed, the level of fees paid and delays in payments. He has supported the recent protests by barristers and solicitors over the Government’s failure to reverse recession-era cuts in criminal legal aid fees.

‘Legal aid evens the playing field a little but it is a haphazard system of payment not linked to the nature of the work’

—  Maurice Regan

He welcomes this week’s announcement of a 10 per cent increase in criminal legal aid fees in Budget 2024 and also supports Minister for Justice Helen McEntee’s pledge to examine the payment structure and to address payment delays. But he says “fundamental” reform is urgently required.

Solicitors and barristers are leaving criminal legal aid work in rising numbers, including in Meath, he says.

“If I wanted to get rich, I wouldn’t be doing criminal legal aid work. I enjoy it but I want to get paid promptly for what I do. I’m due some payments since 2021. Legal aid evens the playing field a little but it is a haphazard system of payment not linked to the nature of the work,” he says.

On a busy day in Trim District Court, Regan has allowed The Irish Times to shadow him to get a sense of his workload and the nature of his cases.

Today, he is representing 10 clients in a list of about 100 cases before Judge Cormac Dunne in a refurbished listed courthouse that dates back to 1810.

Regan takes on six new clients over the course of the day, including a man who receives legal aid after telling the judge he is working but all his money goes on rent.

An unemployed young woman charged with shoplifting is granted legal aid, with the judge noting she will require a Russian interpreter.

One of Regan’s clients, described as having alcohol-induced dementia, pleads guilty to turning up at his former family home three times one day in breach of a barring order.

[ Reversal of 10% criminal legal aid fee cuts welcomed by Bar council as ‘important and necessary first step’ ]

Regan tells the judge the man has nowhere to go and he has asked social services to help find him accommodation. The man cannot take up bail and is remanded in custody, with sentence deferred.

There are many non-appearances, many young defendants and several with limited English.

Criminal legal aid solicitors get €201 for each of the first two cases assigned, €120 each for the third and fourth, and €50.39 each for the fifth and sixth cases.

“Most involve the same work,” says Regan.

He recalls a case involving a school-going defendant on a drugs charge, a first offence with potentially very serious implications.

“I was paid €50.39 for the first day it was in, I saw the information and put together a plea of mitigation. He pleaded guilty the second day the case was in and got the Probation Act. I got €100 in total.”

That was for managing proceedings, including processing the client’s voluntary urine tests to establish he had ceased drug use, taking references, talking to the client three to four times weekly, and making mitigation submissions in court, he says.

“It’s ridiculous. I get €130 to travel from Trim to Cloverhill [Prison] or to set aside time for a video link consultation. It’s difficult stuff, especially when you’re concerned the client does not understand. You have to be sure you’re taking the right instructions. One consultation is not enough,” he says.

And it is not possible to claim costs back, even if he wins a case, he says.

“If the client is innocent, you’re penalised by having to pay to fight it. Experts, engineers, doctors could cost between €5,000 and €10,000, but you don’t get that back,” he says.

Mitigation is often the objective: “It’s getting the best possible result in court. There may be an early guilty plea, remorse, no previous convictions, extenuating factors,” he says.

For a not-guilty plea, he may decide a barrister is required. They are paid directly by the State for Circuit or Central Criminal Courts work but their District Court work is paid out of the fee to their instructing solicitor.

Solicitors have to be paid for work they have already done before they can pay barristers, says Regan. Barristers fees include €25.20 for a remand hearing and €67.50 for representing a client in a trial. Regan says they “deserve a lot more”.

The solicitor works up to 12 hours per day, including court time. There is “a lot of answering phones,” he says.

“The private firms charge €75 for every six minutes of a call but I could be on the phone for hours with somebody who’s terrified at what’s coming down the road at them. We don’t charge for that.”

Payments for family law cases are “even worse” because fees are paid per case, irrespective of how many court appearances there are, he says.

“I have had three family cases this year that settled on the first day; the rest are in multiple hearings, one going back to 2017,” he says.