THE findings by legal costs lawyer Jim Diamond that some top local lawyers charge £475 a hour will have surprised few who have to pay for professional services – but it will explain to all other islanders why they cannot afford legal services.

That rate equates to a salary in excess of £900,000 a year and, while no advocate here can expect to charge out every hour worked at that level, senior partners will expect to take home £700,000 to £900,000 a year in the good times.

And it’s not just lawyers who do well – so do their staff. The last published figures indicated that the average pay of those in that sector was £140,000, compared with the £33,000 enjoyed last year by public sector employees.

While averages can be misleading – there will be few clerks on £140,000 a year – the fact remains that local lawyers are dripping in the cash they have taken off their clients and expect to be at the top of the greasy pole of earnings.

Is that, however, unreasonable? Court Row contains some of the finest minds in Guernsey and, as our business pages frequently report, we have legal practices here that regularly win top awards on a UK or international basis.

Quality service costs – and rightly so, given the importance of getting the right advice.

Where, however, there is a debate about price is when it becomes so extreme that people are denied access to legal advice. The States has recognised that, which is why there is legal aid available for the least well off.

Yet the majority, those who do not qualify and who do not have mega incomes, are effectively excluded from legal assistance, an exclusion that the Royal Court itself compounds by demanding £400 a day just for use of the building.

It is clear that more advocates isn’t the answer. Despite 170 having currently been called to the bar, prices continue to rise, at the same time as the cost of providing legal aid is being highlighted as a burden on taxpayers.

If the Policy Council doesn’t want to employ its own lawyers to provide legal aid, it should end the advocates’ closed shop.

And that would allow in some real competition, which would benefit everyone.