Legal aid firm advised barristers to routinely assign multiple solicitors to single client

A law firm advised barristers to routinely ask judges to assign multiple solicitors to individual clients facing numerous charges, so that additional legal aid would be secured. The practice was permitted and commonly used by some law firms until July 1st this year, when Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan introduced reforms reducing criminal legal aid payments in a scheme strongly opposed by much of the legal profession. The procedure of assigning multiple solicitors from the same firm to a defendant facing multiple charges listed together before the court was referenced in a Department of Justice review of criminal legal aid cases that informed changes to the legal aid system.The practice, intended to prevent “unnecessary loss of revenue” to the firm when clients were charged with more than one offence, was encouraged in a May 2021 letter sent to barristers by solicitor Aonghus McCarthy, practising as Aonghus McCarthy & Co Solicitors in Dublin. The firm was the fourth highest-earning legal aid firm in 2025, with €758,000 paid to it by the Department of Justice.In his 2021 letter, seen by The Irish Times, McCarthy wrote that it would be a “massive error” and “negligent” of counsel instructed by his company to ask a judge simply for legal aid, as this would result in one solicitor’s name going on all charge sheets referring to a client. READ MORESuch an approach cost the legal office “thousands annually and cannot continue”, the letter said. McCarthy’s 2021 letter said newer barristers needed to perfect the preferred practice to “prevent the unnecessary loss of revenue” to the instructing firm.The letter gave a hypothetical example of a client being prosecuted by one garda on 18 charges. It said it was “absolutely essential” that a barrister assigned the charges across a range of solicitors. The alternative scenario of 18 charge sheets being assigned to one solicitor would mean the firm was only paid for one, “in spite of the fact that we have to review 18 pieces of disclosure and go through all charges with the client”. When asked to comment, Aonghus McCarthy & Co Solicitors said the letter was an educational internal guidance note intended to assist barristers navigating what was then a complex criminal legal aid system. It was intended to reflect the legal framework as it then stood and to assist junior practitioners in making “legally correct and procedurally accurate legal aid applications, ensuring that we were paid lawfully for the work we undertook – no more and no less”. The firm said the email was partly based on similar guidance issued previously by legal colleagues.The recent Department of Justice review said the overall number of cases involving multiple legal aid certificates for a single accused has “increased dramatically”. Until July 1st, a legal aid regulation provided that only one certificate was typically paid for cases heard together or in quick succession against a single accused unless the court directed otherwise for “good reason”.The regulation allowed solicitors to “maximise” earnings in ways not envisaged by the original legal aid legislation, “including by distributing multiple certificates across colleagues in the same firm”. The review said this regulation had become a “major issue” and placed “strain” on the legal aid budget. It was amended on July 1st to provide that “one legal aid certificate only shall be granted” to a person charged with offences listed together at their commencement.The department has said the cost of the criminal legal aid scheme for the District Court increased from €19.3 million in 2015 to €40.7 million in 2025. O’Callaghan has attributed the upward trajectory to three primary factors: an increase in offences attracting legal aid, a high number of case adjournments and the granting of multiple legal aid certificates for separate offences arising out of the same incident.Last March the High Court dismissed judicial review test cases brought by two clients of Aonghus McCarthy & Co Solicitors over refusals by two District Court judges to assign different solicitors in the firm to each charge.Judge Siobhán Phelan noted there were several other challenges to similar refusals and that the issue “plainly” arose frequently before the District Court. In these two cases, Phelan said, no application for separate legal aid certificates was made under the regulation.In one of the cases, the defendant allegedly committed two burglary offences on the same day at different locations, while the other concerned a man charged with four offences on three separate dates and at three locations. In the former case, the District Court judge refused to assign separate solicitors to each charge. In the latter, the judge granted a certificate in McCarthy’s name but, noting the charges related to three separate dates and involved two prosecuting gardaí, indicated he had no difficulty applying the regulation. However, McCarthy later received three legal aid certificates assigning him to all matters.In her High Court ruling, Phelan said there was no obligation on a court to consider a request to assign a different solicitor on each charge unless a regulation 7(4) application was advanced on the basis of a “good reason”.