End of June, City of London: Dozens of defense lawyers from all over England and Wales have gathered to protest on the small street Old Baily, in front of the Central Criminal Court of the same name and with a view of futuristic-looking office complexes.

Your posters warn of an "all out" - a collapse of the English criminal justice system.

Almost all are wearing their black barrister's robes and barrister's wig that trial attorneys customarily wear in court.

Marcus Young

Editor in Business.

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With his suit, business shirt and tie - and without the horsehair wig - Jo Sindhu stands out from the crowd.

From a pedestal, the criminal lawyer swears his professional colleagues and the public in for the coming months in the labor dispute: “Last year we lost another 300 criminal defense lawyers.

Why?

Because they could no longer do this job with the wages and hours they had to work in this country.”

With his entire appearance, his emotionality and his language, the 56-year-old lawyer comes across as a union leader who is swearing his followers into an uncomfortable dispute with the employer side.

But Sindhu is a renowned criminal defense attorney.

For several years he has had the title "Queen's Counsel" as part of his name, which identifies him as a particularly experienced barrister in Great Britain.

And for a number of years he has served as President of the Criminal Bar Association (CBA), a body of criminal lawyers in England and Wales.

It is not a trade union, but an association of freelancers.

As an expert in high-profile murder or commercial fraud, Sindhu is probably in a much better financial position than many of his younger colleagues.

The CBA President has repeatedly emphasized in his many interviews and appearances these days that job starters would have to get by on an average of £12,200 in the first few years.

Far too little to keep one's head above water professionally, given the high inflation in England and the staff and travel costs to the country's scattered criminal courts.

Up to 40 percent have turned their backs on the profession.

60,000 cases remain

He has been far more than just a lobbyist these months: the CBA President has swapped the role of defender for that of prosecutor: he accuses the Tory government, with Justice Secretary Dominic Raab at the forefront, of not raising fees appropriately – asking for 25 percent more the criminal defense lawyers, who are usually dependent on "legal aid" for the defense of criminals.

But even previous governments have ignored the criminal justice system and its funding, and Sindhu knows that too.

According to an internal report that supported the government's austerity measures, things escalated in early summer - the criminal defense lawyers no longer took on holiday replacements, others stopped working completely.

Coming from an Asian family in the London suburb of Southall, he actually wanted to make the world a better place.

He first studied political science, philosophy and economics in Oxford and later went to the London School of Economics.

It wasn't until he was in his mid-twenties, as Sindhu recently said in a podcast, that he discovered his passion for law.

And the same now sees it as endangered: "This government, which has no plan for the criminal justice system and has neglected it for so long, expects us to continue to do its bidding," he called out from his podium in June.

From September 5th, all criminal defense lawyers will go on strike - the end of which is still open.