Law Society responds to court reform plans with call for greater support

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An independent review of the criminal courts has highlighted that the “entire system needs funding”, according to The Law Society of England and Wales President Richard Atkinson.

Sir Biran Leveson’s review, published on Wednesday 9 July, has called for a range of reforms aimed at streamlining the justice process, including significantly reducing the number of jury trials. He argued that the system needs “fundamental" changes and suggested replacing some jury trials with judge-only trials in cases like fraud and bribery.

He also suggested creating a new division of the crown court, where two magistrates and a judge would handle "less serious offences" instead of a jury.

As of the end of March 2025, the crown court backlog reached 76,957 cases and the magistrates’ court backlog hit 310,304.

Responding to the report’s recommendations, Atkinson said: “The proposed new division of the crown court on its own will not solve the crown court backlog. The government would have undermined our historic jury system for no effect. Only investment in the whole system has any chance of success – from when a criminal prosecution starts in the police station, and at all stages before a crown court case.”

He added: “Without sustained long-term investment in the system dealing with both demand on the courts and the capacity of the courts, the government will simply be shifting the crown court backlog to the magistrates’ court backlog and creating another backlog in the new division.”

The Law Society stressed that any potential changes, such as the loss of jury trials, must be kept “under review with thorough data collection” to ensure that it’s “working and worth it” and to keep “public trust in the system”. Atkinson warned: “If the government cherry-picks the recommendations, they will be denying justice to our communities.”

Leveson’s review also sets out several specific measures intended to speed up case resolution and reduce the backlog, such as:

• reclassifying certain offences to streamline case handling;
• increasing the use of court resolutions, allowing police to deal more swiftly with lower-level, often first-time offences through greater use of cautions and conditional cautions;
• removing the right to elect crown court trial for offences with a maximum two-year sentence, with some reclassified as ‘summary only’ and heard in magistrates’ courts;
• raising the threshold for criminal damage to be treated as a summary only offence from £5,000 to £10,000; and
• increasing the maximum sentence reduction to 40% for guilty pleas entered at the first opportunity to encourage quicker case resolution.