Family and Friends Forum

My Son was sentenced in Crown Court . It was his Legal Aid Solicitor who instructed a Barrister. Solicitor was hopeless but Barrister was sharp as a tack. Legal aid covered everything. Wishing you all the best x

A barrister would always be required for the Crown court, and the solicitor will usually arrange one.

Just to add that your solicitor will certainly recommend or find a barrister for both plea and crown, but if yours is like ours he will recommend the most expensive as being the best and say if needed he'll suggest other cheaper options. That puts you in a bit of a quandary as who knows if a cheaper one might do an even better job than the expensive one but if not would you forever regret not selling a kidney to instruct the most expensive one?! That was our dilemma for our son but in the end we went for the expensive one, and although who knows what kind of a job any other cheaper one might have done, ours did an excellent job for our son in the face of some tricky admin and CPS errors which he was on the ball about.

PS There is no duty barrister there like magistrates courts have and also I do believe that some solicitors can represent someone in a crown court case but they have to have extra credentials. I think they are called a solicitor advocate......

My son was not offered a Barrister for Crown court. The firm of solicitors who represented him at Magistrates court arranged his representation for Crown court and we naively just accepted this. The person who represented him was a solicitor who has obtained the right to represent clients in the Crown Court!