Lawyers are to be given a 100 percent pay rise for legal aid cases after an agreement was reached between the Health Ministry and the Bermuda Bar Council.

They are to be paid $200 an hour for all legal aid cases, and Health Minister Nelson Bascome said he hoped the increase would encourage more law firms to offer their services to those people unable to pay huge legal fees.

The Minister said although the new fees had been agreed by himself, the Bar Council and Cabinet, administrative work still had to be carried out to rubber stamp the agreement.

And he said until that was done, he was unable to say when the pay rise would take effect or whether it would be back dated.

“Right now, we are at a point where everyone has to sign off on the agreement,” said Mr. Bascome. “But we have made a commitment, and it's been accepted by the Bermuda Bar Council. The fees have increased from $100 an hour to $200. They were looking for a higher fee, but we managed to reach this agreement quickly and easily.

“We looked at the time period of the last review and it has not been reviewed in some 12 years, so it was necessary to make the adjustments,” Mr. Bascome explained. “I can say that the process was very amicable and we were able to reach an agreement in a relatively short period of time.”

Lawyers who take on legal cases had refused to do so any more until the fees were substantially hiked up. They said many lawyers were charging between $300 and $400 an hour ordinarily, so felt it was not worth their time and effort to do legal aid cases for just $100 an hour.

The lobby led to some problems for defendants who could not afford lawyers, but were unable to receive legal aid counsel.

The Royal Gazette reported one case two weeks' ago where two men had their cases adjourned because they had been unable to secure legal aid representation.

But Mr. Bascome said he hoped to now see a bigger pool of lawyers taking on legal aid cases. He added: “Right now, we just have a few lawyers who are dedicated to legal aid cases. I can remember the time when we had a number of the larger law firms dedicated to do it, but not now. We want more lawyers to assist, especially from the larger firms.”

Defence lawyer Patrick Doherty said he welcomed the rise, but said he also wanted to see partial legal aid assistance made available for those people who were working and did not qualify for full legal aid, but could not afford lawyers' fees.

He said many people in Bermuda fell into that category.

Commenting on the rise, he said: “At present, it seems like a fair and reasonble rate. It's certainly a positive step forward.

“It does seem that the rates have been raised quickly and I'm certainly pleased about that. But I think the next issue that has to be addressed is the fact that there are people in Bermuda who make too much money to get legal aid representation, yet in no way can they afford proper legal representation.

“Some partial legal aid scheme has to be worked out to help those people.”

Defence lawyer Mark Pettingill said he was also pleased to see the legal aid rate increase.

“I'm absolutely happy about that. The new rate is very fair. While it is still below what a lot of attorneys are charging, doubling the rate certainly makes it more in line with a reasonable fee for the work that has to be done.

“People want quality in their representation and for the amount of work that goes into a major case, such as a murder trial, and the amount of research and people involved, the lawyer was effectively getting $20 in his pocket by the time he had paid out on everything else.”

And Mr. Pettingill said it was important for people to realise that many lawyers did a certain amount of pro bono work every year.

“There are a lot of people who don't qualify for legal aid and can't afford lawyers, so we literally do some work for free,” added Mr. Pettingill.

But he said he doubted whether an increase in the legal aid rates would lead to additional lawyers putting themselves forward for legal aid cases.

He added: “I don't think there will be a lot of people chomping at the bit. I don't think there will be a sudden increase in people saying they will do legal aid now.”