Sir Brian Leveson says solicitors profit from delays, fuelling a justice system on the brink
The UK’s criminal justice system is “too broken” to survive without radical intervention, and solicitors’ legal aid incentives are partly to blame. That’s the stark warning delivered by Sir Brian Leveson in a scathing 378-page report published today — a document that pulls no punches in diagnosing a system warped by delay, dysfunction and damaging financial motives.
At the heart of the crisis lies a perverse reality: some defence solicitors earn more if their clients delay entering guilty pleas. According to Leveson, current legal aid fee structures create a financial incentive to prolong cases unnecessarily, dragging them into the Crown court when they could have been resolved swiftly in magistrates’ courts.
“It is my view that some of these incentives have become perverse,” Leveson wrote. “They have the potential to encourage cases to proceed to trial and discourage early guilty pleas.”
He explained that the fee disparity means solicitors are likely to earn more when a client delays pleading guilty until a Crown court hearing. By doing so, they secure higher fees for sentencing proceedings, far exceeding the amount paid for resolving the matter at an earlier stage.
This tactic is not only inefficient — it’s costing justice. “Perverse incentives are contributing to a general trend of guilty pleas being made later in the court process and causing decisions to be made which are not always in defendants’ best interests,” Leveson warned. “This is delaying justice, adding to the open caseload and reducing confidence in the criminal justice system.”
Embed from Getty ImagesAnother problematic fee trigger is the reliance on pages of prosecution evidence to calculate payment levels — an approach Leveson says deters early guilty pleas in seemingly straightforward cases. More paperwork equals higher remuneration, even when swift resolution is in the best interests of everyone involved.
Leveson insists that any future legal aid scheme must actively reward early resolution and remove outdated methods of measuring complexity and remuneration. “The funding model must be realigned to reflect the outcomes we want — faster, fairer justice,” he urged.
The report doesn’t stop at funding reforms. Leveson proposes a raft of sweeping changes to shake up the entire criminal court landscape. Among the more controversial ideas: allowing Crown court defendants to opt for trial by judge alone, introducing a new division within the Crown court system, and reserving judge-only trials for serious and complex cases.
He also recommends increasing the use of out-of-court resolutions to prevent minor offences from clogging the courtroom pipeline.
The reaction from the government was swift and supportive. Lord Chancellor Shabana Mahmood, who commissioned the review, declared: “This government inherited a justice system in crisis. Victims were paying the price — waiting years for justice.”
Mahmood cited recent funding boosts, including 4,000 more court sitting days than her predecessors, but acknowledged money alone wouldn’t solve the problem. “Swifter justice requires bold reform,” she said, pledging to “do whatever it takes” to cut the Crown court backlog.
The government has promised to publish its full response ahead of new legislation set for this autumn. For now, Leveson’s damning diagnosis will fuel intense debate about the direction of criminal justice reform — and whether solicitors’ pay models should ever stand in the way of prompt, fair justice.
