Richard Atkinson, immediate past president of the Law Society and a criminal defence solicitor of over 30 years, closed the Modernising Criminal Justice conference with an assessment of Sir Brian Leveson's independent review of criminal courts - arguing that the Crown Court backlog, while real, is a symptom of a much wider crisis rather than a crisis itself.
Richard opened by challenging the media narrative that the Crown Court backlog - standing at over 80,000 cases as of December 2025 - is the system's only serious problem. He argued the Magistrates' Court, which handles over 90% of all criminal cases, is under at least as much strain, with its open caseload reaching 379,437 in December 2025 and the government's own impact assessment predicting it will double in the coming years. If reforms simply push more cases down into the Magistrates' Court without investing in its capacity, Richard warned, the system isn't solving the backlog problem, it's relocating it.
He grounded this in workforce figures: the number of duty solicitors in England and Wales has fallen from 5,240 in 2017 to around 3,800 by 2024, a drop of 27%, with more than 40% now over 55 and a 55% fall in those under 45 - evidence, he argued, of a genuine pipeline and succession crisis, not simply a staffing shortage. Some duty solicitor schemes now operate with fewer than seven members, and the proportion of Magistrates' Court trials rendered ineffective by the unavailability of a defence advocate has risen 25% compared with the pre-COVID decade. He illustrated the point with an anecdote from a Welsh magistrates' court forced to choose between adjourning an entire afternoon's list or denying police the chance to interview a suspect in custody, because only one duty solicitor was available in the area.
Richard welcomed Leveson's recognition that criminal justice operates as one connected system rather than isolated institutions - noting that delays in prisoner transport, an overwhelmed Magistrates' Court, or unsustainable legal aid rates all ripple through to affect the Crown Court, whether or not they're formally linked. He backed several of Leveson's recommendations as genuinely sensible: stronger system-wide leadership, greater diversion away from the courts where appropriate, better data on reform effectiveness, and sustained investment in infrastructure and workforce. However, he warned that Leveson's recommendation of pay parity between Magistrates' Court legal advisors and CPS lawyers (recommendation 147) risks making things worse for defence practitioners specifically, if pursued without also addressing legal aid rates for defence solicitors (recommendation 154) - since defence lawyers are already leaving for better-paid CPS roles, and parity elsewhere in the system would simply accelerate that drift.
On the more contentious question of restricting the right to elect Crown Court trial, Richard was cautious, arguing jury trial is a vital safeguard and source of public legitimacy that shouldn't be curtailed without properly evidenced justification - which he said the government has not yet provided. He also raised a less-discussed risk: judges in judge-alone trials may be forced to write detailed judgments out-of-hours to avoid eating into sitting time, unlike juries who can deliberate while the court day continues around them.
Richard's overall verdict was cautiously optimistic but conditional. He argued Leveson's recommendations must be implemented as a complete package rather than a menu of politically convenient options, warning that cherry-picking will produce piecemeal change while public trust continues to erode. Workforce recovery, he stressed, cannot be rushed - buildings can be repaired in months and sitting days increased overnight, but experienced criminal practitioners take years to train and cannot simply be conjured into existence.