Salary increase slows down the flight of duty lawyers
The loss of registered lawyers that the Bar Association related to precariousness is reduced by half
BarcelonaAfter years in which fewer and fewer lawyers were interested in the free justice service on the duty roster, the trend is beginning to change. The Bar Association of Catalonia (Cicac) had long ago linked the precariousness of work in this service with the decrease in registered lawyers, and now notes that this loss "is moderating significantly" although it continues to advance. All this coinciding with an agreement to increase by 11.2% the remuneration that lawyers receive for each action, such as advising a detainee at the police station and when they are brought before the court.
Specifically, the loss of duty roster lawyers has gone from being 4% in 2024 to 1.9% last year, according to data released by Cicac this Tuesday. In some bar associations, the situation has stabilized and they have even registered a small increase in the number of affiliated professionals, as has happened in Lleida, Reus, Sabadell, Sant Feliu de Llobregat, and Vic.
The analysis of the service carried out by the Bar Association also confirms that the duty roster carried out 3.2% more actions last year than the previous year, reaching 371,901. Regarding the first quarter of 2026, the data show a slight stabilization of activity, with 96,013 actions, 1.9% less.
"Ensuring the future of the duty roster"
The president of Cicac, Rogeli Montoliu, has celebrated that they can "start to explain the first solutions that are already being made effective". He added that "the improvements promoted during this last year must allow us to recover the attractiveness of the duty lawyer service and guarantee its future". The most recent is the 11.2% increase in economic compensation for the lawyers' actions, which has been applied since June with retroactive effect from January 1, and with the commitment to repeat this improvement until 2029."Our objective is not only to improve the conditions of professionals, but to achieve that the duty roster becomes an attractive professional project again," Montoliu defended during the presentation of the report on the state of the service. "When the duty roster is attractive to professionals, it is also stronger for citizens," he concluded.Catalan
The radiography on the duty roster presented by Cicac this Tuesday also reflects the evolution of the Catalan promotion plan in this service. This program compensates with a bonus of 25 euros over the usual remuneration for documents that lawyers submit in Catalan. During the year 2025, this plan has registered a 15% increase in actions in Catalan, and more than double have been carried out compared to 2021. Currently, one out of every four duty lawyers participates in this Catalan promotion program, and the Council considers that lawyers who use Catalan orally in court should also be compensated.