Has a Trojan horse been invited into the Global Law Summit?

Chairman of the CBA slams government for treating legal aid system as a second-class service

Tony Cross QC, chairman of the Criminal Bar Association (CBA), has attacked the government ahead of his controversial appearance at its flagship legal event, the Global Law Summit (GLS).

Of late, Cross has been criticised by many of his criminal barrister brethren, most recently by John Cooper QC, who believes the CBA chairman's place should be protesting against the event not speaking inside it.

However, Cross was quoted in The Independent on Sunday as saying: "I'm going to talk about how successive governments have treated public law with contempt, certainly over the last 20 years.

"I will look to compare and contrast this wonderful idea of Magna Carta and where we are now: how morale is at an all-time low, how barristers and solicitors feel undervalued. The last few governments have treated the legal aid system as a second-class service, when in fact it should be treated as a first-class service that society demands, from probation to the delivery of services in magistrates' and crown courts."

Cross is also expected to demand that a non-lawyer is never again elevated to the historically significant position of Lord Chancellor.

Chris Grayling has felt the ire of much of the legal profession since his appointment as Lord Chancellor in 2012. Labour's shadow solicitor general, Karl Turner MP, told SJ last year that Grayling's track record means there is now a question mark over whether the Lord Chancellor should be legally trained.

Now the justice secretary may well be feeling the heat from inside the lavish government-backed conference as well as outside it, where lawyers will today be protesting the lack of access to justice and cuts to legal aid due to Grayling's reforms to the legal system.

In addition to the CBA, representatives from the Law Society, the Bar Council, the International Bar Association, the judiciary, as well as various law firms and chambers, are all due to speak at the GLS. Whether any of those speakers will also be using the forum to speak out against the government remains to be seen.

John van der Luit-Drummond is legal reporter for Solicitors Journal