Law Society warns that young law students are moving away from criminal law as case blockage causes work to dry up

A backlog of court cases is likely to “explode” eventually as young would-be-lawyers shun criminal law in favour of other jurisdictions.

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The Law Society has warned the state’s top courts face a brain drain as young law students turn away from careers as criminal barristers.

A blockage of cases in the magistrates court has caused work to dry up in the higher courts but, a lack of new talent is set to bite when the backlog of almost 1500 major indictable matters floods from the magistrates court to the district and supreme courts.

The Law Society highlighted the issue in a submission to the State Government’s review into major indictable reform, saying that junior barristers were moving away from criminal law in search of greener pastures in the commercial and civil jurisdictions.

The society also voiced concerns about the logjam of cases causing serious charges to be dropped, lengthy delays and friction between police prosecutors, representatives of the Director of Public Prosecutions and magistrates.

Chair of the Law Society’s Criminal Law Committee Craig Caldicott said there were slim pickings for junior barristers at the moment but a wave of cases threatened to increase already lengthy delays.

“We know that there are approximately 1500 matters still in the magistrates court, but we don’t know how much that is going to increase or decrease,” Mr Caldicott said. “Eventually a number of those matters are going to come to the district court for trial.”

Law Society of SA President Amy Nikolovski said the trial list would eventually explode.

Law Society president Amy Nikolovski said “delays in the current system cannot be sustained”.

“It is likely that eventually a deluge of matters will arrive at the district court causing the trial list to explode,” she said.

The Society has obtained statistics from the Chief Magistrate that showed 2697 major indictable lodgements had been made in the magistrates court since the reforms were introduced in March 2018 to April 30 this year.

A total of 188 cases had been committed for trial and 123 had been committed for sentence.

Attorney-General Vickie Chapman announced the review in March in response to concerns from stakeholders, including the Law Society and the SA Bar Association.

“As this is an independent review of the Major Indictable Legislation, all submissions will be looked at by the reviewer (former Supreme Court Justice Brian Martin), including the submission by the Law Society,” she said.