Barristers and lawyers working on the Leveson Inquiry into phone-hacking and press standards could be paid as much as £200 an hour from public funds.A report in The Telegraph said the inquiry had placed a ‘ceiling on funding at £200 an hour for leading counsel, £100 an hour for junior counsel, £150 for solicitors and even £75 an hour for trainee lawyers”.
With the inquiry likely to run for several months it was ‘likely to cost tens of millions of pounds”, The Telegraph claimed.
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A campaigns manager at the Taxpayers’ Alliance, Robert Oxley, told the paper:
With an issue that affects the foundation of democracy, there has to be a proper investigation in to the allegations.
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But it is important the investigation represents value for taxpayers’ money and that the result is to restore faith in the organisations and not to bolster the pockets of well-paid lawyers.
But Mark Stephens, a partner at the law firm Finers Stephens Innocent who worked on the Bloody Sunday inquiry, said the hourly rates were a ‘fraction of usual fees”.
According to Stevens a barrister in an inquiry could on average earn £1,000 an hour and a solicitor could earn £300 an hour. He praised Lord Justice Leveson for not letting the inquiry become a ‘money cow’for lawyers.
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