Legal aid: more cases, fewer lawyers willing to take them

The demands are not new, but the government's inertia has turned the discontent of the black robes into a simmering revolt. In Luxembourg, lawyers do not take to the streets, but they can decline cases. And that's what more and more law firms are doing, suffocated by the fees they can expect from taking on cases covered by legal aid – a "pitiful" fee, in the words of Nathalie Barthélémy, full lawyer and co-founder of the law firm Schmartz & Barthélémy.

To understand their unease, we need to look back at what legal aid is: the State's payment of lawyers' fees for people who cannot afford to pay them themselves. Although it has existed since the 19th century, it was only in 1995 in Luxembourg – two decades after France and Belgium – that the State began directly remunerating lawyers for their legal-aid cases. The remuneration is set by the Ministry of Justice. From 2011 to 2020, it stood at 87 euros per hour for an experienced lawyer and 58 euros per hour for a trainee lawyer. This is two to three times less than the rates charged by lawyers in small or medium-sized litigation practice. And that's not even mentioning business law firms, with some big names charging up to 700 euros an hour. "If a lawyer is paid less than a plumber, then we shouldn't necessarily expect the best service", fumed François Prum, President of the Bar between 2016 and 2018. Especially as the hourly rate had even been de-indexed since 2013.