Dear Ms Brown,

I wanted to write to you with the words I would have spoken to you had I been there in person today.

As you read this I will be making my way, like any other day, to a Magistrates’ Court. It matters not that there is a National warning. None of my junior colleagues or friends are in the fortunate position to work from home or have the day off, even on such a day.

We are duty bound to do this work. Today’s journey will cost me £55. In return my first appearance hearing will pay me £50. Out of that I will take even less once I have paid my clerk’s fees and my taxes. Who knows if I will get stranded today or if anyone else will turn up, but I must be there.

The Magistrates’ fees are not part of the strike action for a number of reasons. The reality is that we as junior criminal barristers are expected to pass through the gruelling and often chaotic world of the Magistrates’ court to prove our worth in the Crown Court. For this we suffer the bad pay, the bad working conditions and sometimes humiliating treatment from various users of the court system. We do this in hope that one day we can find ourselves in the Crown Court to fight for the causes, the clients and the system we care so much about.

On this journey we accrue debt because £50 for months cannot sustain you. A lot of us push ourselves to the financial limit, waiting in hope of the promise of the Crown Court. We sacrifice evenings and weekends, turn up at Saturday court all so we can progress up in life.

But the reason why the Bar is now taking action is because once we find ourselves there, after weathering the storm, we find the complexity of our cases and our workload equally increased but the wages stagnated yet again. We are doing more work for which the pay does not reflect the hours or the hard work. Here it is that so many of us start to fall away.

So many of my colleagues and I come from various walks of life. We are not the traditional elitist view that so many associate with the Bar. My close friend, the daughter of a North London cab driver, my friend a first-generation immigrant from Palestine, colleagues born and raised in Romford or Lambeth. Across this city from Newham to Lewisham, from Finchley to Hounslow, we represent not just diversity of race, but diversity of thought and experience. A vital insight in our profession. When we can’t afford to be here, when we leave, we take that diversity with us. We leave behind a profession that can only be sustained by a few who can afford to be there or who against the odds struggle to be there.

That is unsustainable as eventually we have found ourselves in a place where, diverse or not, there is no one left. Cases floating about from chambers to chambers without barristers to take them on. Most criminal barristers will have a mixed practice and when in the early years defence work cannot sustain you, how will you make it to where you need to be to prosecute complex rape trials? The crisis of Rape prosecutions is equally affected by an exodus of criminal practitioners.

But returning to our borough Ms Brown. I have lived in East London for most of my adult life. I understand the borough, the needs of the youth community, the destruction of our public services after years of cuts, the deprivation and equally our vibrant spirit that tries to survive in difficult circumstances. I know the child who goes out and falls into bad company because their mother was too busy working a second job to feed her children. Or the community centres that got turned into luxury flats. When I have sat in court and held their hand and understood their pain, when I have stood up in court and spoken their stories, I have spoken with truth and passion as their story is my story.

I am not what a person thinks of when they think of a barrister. 12 years ago I was pulling pints to survive, working on shop floors to break even on my rent and the nights I returned home to an abusive relationship. I believe I survived that life because I was supposed to make something of my life. When I languished I kept my sights squarely on escaping to a better life. To one day stand and fight for justice and good, so no one may suffer like I once did.

Imagine my pain to have found myself here after fighting for a coveted place in this profession to only be in a position of more debt, to be unable to pay my bills, sleepless night after sleepless nights worrying about my income.

This government speaks of aspiration. My aspirations took me out of low skill work, my aspiration took me to law school and now the Bar. But aspiration has not taken me out of poverty. That responsibility now lies squarely at the door of government.

But it is not simply my aspiration, my comfort or that of my colleagues I speak to you today for. I set about on this journey to fight against an injustice I myself experienced. I cannot say our criminal justice system is fit for purpose anymore. It is an adversarial system, a fair system that requires equity of arms. I cannot say this is true anymore.

Across the board the criminal justice system is being propped up by overworked, underpaid and overstretched colleagues. Court buildings crumbling on jurors who come to fulfil their civic duties, victims left without justice for months and suspects left in anguish awaiting their fate. In East London, Snaresbrook left with leaking roofs, floods in offices with electrical equipment, bits of ceiling falling on jurors.

Ultimately it is the people of this country who suffer. Justice is meant to be blind. All who come before her are to be judged faithfully. How can this fundamental principle be upheld in such an environment?

So Ms Brown I write to you not just as a Junior Barrister, I write to you as your constituent. Our action has gone on for weeks. This week we hit 5 days of action. Our calls have for months, weeks and days fallen on deaf ears. I urge you to hear us. To represent us and to assist us in having the government save our justice system. We seek the support of Parliamentarians to ensure that we can all deliver justice for the public.