A word or two about barristers who do publicly-funded criminal and family law. To get into any set of chambers these days you have to have pretty much excelled in your studies. You’ll be clever and conscientious. /1

To get through pupillage you have to be prepared to work harder than you ever have. You have to demonstrate that you will step up to take on the responsibilty for representing people who are in life-transforming amounts of trouble. /2

To establish a practice you have to work harder still. You have to be prepared to put in unpaid hours in the hope of getting paid at rates that have not increased since well before the turn of the century. /3

Because you are who you are; because the client comes first; because you cannot bring yourself to cut the cloth of preparation to fit the meagre size of the fee, judges know and the Govt knows that you will find a way to get it done. /4

It is what is best about you - your willingness to give it all for the people who need your representation - that makes it so easy to keep piling on the work. It’s also what makes that exploitation so unforgivable. /5

You are heroes to me. Not for the hours you are made to work and not because you do it for a dwindling reward but because somehow you are still doing the amazing job you do. /6

It makes me furious and it leaves me dismayed to see the tourniquet keep tightening. If you break, the system breaks and if the system breaks, no-one should ever have the shamelessness to boast about British justice again. /7

We are all with you, in admiration and in solidarity.