Victorian Bar warns low pay risks aborted trials and overturned convictions
The Criminal Bar Association of Victoria has warned that underpaid and unprepared lawyers are causing cases to be abandoned and convictions overturned, saying this is largely due to low fee rates offered by state prosecutors.
In an email to members and seen by this imprint, association president Chris Carr, SC, said the briefing fees paid by the Office of Public Prosecutions (OPP) to external counsel were significantly lower than the fees paid by Victoria Legal Aid (VLA). He said this was generally acknowledged to be “wholly inadequate” and was half the amount paid by other government agencies such as the Environmental Protection Authority and WorkSafe.
“The state government was prepared to appropriately fund investigations into environmental crimes, occupational health and safety offences… but was similarly reluctant to fund investigations into rape, murder and child sexual offences,” Carr said.
“Complex prosecutions conducted by prosecutors who are not handled by sufficiently experienced attorneys or who do not have sufficient funding to spend the time necessary to properly prepare cases tend to lead to inequitable and inappropriate outcomes.”
The email comes after the OPP announced it would increase the fees it pays lawyers by 2.5 per cent effective April 1; This leaves them behind the current inflation rate of 3.8 percent, Carr said.
Although the OPP has in-house prosecutors and Crown prosecutors, it regularly briefs outside lawyers due to the province’s caseload, which often includes cases of murder, manslaughter, sexual assault, drug trafficking and fraud.
Carr expressed disappointment on behalf of the association and said some cases needed to be retried because of errors that could have been caused by underfunding lawyers.
He said the work done by the OPP is fundamental to the functioning of the criminal justice system.
“Properly experienced prosecutors who are appropriately compensated to properly prepare and conduct cases are vital to our system’s ability to produce fair outcomes,” Carr said.
“There have been numerous instances where OPP lawyers have requested that criminal cases be postponed because they cannot find a lawyer willing to prosecute cases at the fee rate set by the OPP.
“There are many cases where unpaid prosecutors make mistakes.” [sufficiently] “Individuals who are forced to spend the time necessary to properly prepare a case or who are asked to take on a case that requires the skills and experience of a more senior lawyer have caused trials to be abandoned, juries to be dismissed, and convictions to be overturned.”
In 2022, this imprint revealed that criminal cases were postponed because the OPP could not find a prosecutor.
At the time, the OPP was struggling with low morale, underfunding and an exodus of experienced staff following the contentious decision to disband its specialist sex crimes unit.
Data on current fees paid to Victoria Legal Aid and OPP lawyers In some cases, it varies by hundreds of dollars per day.
At judges’ hearings, VLA-trained attorneys are paid between $1,157 and $1,284 per day. By comparison, attorneys with less than seven years of experience at the OPP are paid between $654.50 and $762 per day, representing a 16 percent difference in rates.
In the District Court, under the 2026 payment schedule, VLA pays attorneys $1834 for the first day, while OPP pays junior attorneys $1360.70 for the same period; This is a difference of almost 35 percent.
The OPP issued a response to the association’s email on Tuesday. OPP director Brendan Kissane and lawyer Abbey Hogan rejected the suggestion that there was a link between preparation funding, lawyer seniority and unfair legal outcomes such as overturning of convictions and retrials.
An internal review found that these results were influenced by a number of factors, including defense errors and judicial misdirection.
“OPP highly values the skill, integrity and dedication of the attorneys we brief,” they said.
“We recognize the real pressures surrounding attorney fees. In a highly constrained fiscal environment, the OPP continues to advocate for better funding.”
Legal sources with knowledge of the matter, who agreed to speak only on condition of anonymity, said the biggest impact was in cases involving sexual offences, where lawyers were not paid to meet with complainants or read summaries of evidence, which averaged 1,200 to 2,000 pages.
The source said: Victoria Bar entrance exams With the recent easing of the transition, significantly more people are becoming lawyers and able to work in the field without any criminal law experience. This opens a market for cheaper but less experienced lawyers, they said.
The source said that with the recent abolition of the death penalty in rape cases, there was a risk that innocent people would languish in prison and be found not guilty, possibly without any recourse, when potential problems could have been identified earlier if the evidence had been tested in a magistrates’ court.
“Either you agree with the idea, ‘I believe people should go to jail, police mentality’… [to work for the OPP]they said.
“There needs to be systemic change, and the consequences of that change are [weak] The cases will be taken to court.”
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