HAVING never looked for anything more than a decent week's pay for a decent day's work, I am greatly interested in the costs allowed by the Taxing Master for the legal teams at the beef tribunal.

There has already been a great deal of ignorant criticism of the sums involved. Wild words have been flung about, bitter accusations made on the airwaves and the printed page. My media colleagues must now look into their own hearts, and ask themselves honestly if envy has not played a part. Sheer malice, too, has perhaps had an inning, combined with the desperate sense of unworthiness the fourth estate has traditionally felt in the presence of legal eminence and its just rewards.

Bitterness, jealousy, back biting, the remains of half baked socialist notions left over from undergraduate days, and the terrible effects of alcohol dependency, so sadly endemic to the journalistic profession: all have added to the ugly mix. The result has been a spewing out of savage media bile, all in an unworthy effort to undermine the status of law, its noble practitioners, the State itself, and the unstinting efforts of the Goodman Group to make this nation great, no matter at what cost.

It is all rather embarrassing (though Mr Larry Goodman has to his credit maintained a dignified silence). But the embarrassment has not been confined to the media spectacle. The legal profession has compromised its own dignity.

In the first place it has seen fit to publicise not merely its own remuneration, but also the somewhat vulgar methods of computation. I refer in particular to the "daily rate". This notion is a considerable embarrassment for those of us in the professional classes, for whom time measured in the normal way - say the way a builder or plumber measures it - has little relevance.

As the Taxing Master, Mr James Flynn, pointed out, "The time factor amount will sufficiently reimburse the solicitor for the physical expenditure of time but it is no measure for the mental demands or strain the case places on the solicitor".

Well put. The physical expenditure of time - actually getting to the place of work, opening the briefcase, breathing, speaking, listening, taking a note or two, drafting a memo, picking up the phone, putting down the phone, replacing material in the briefcase - impinges little on the professional person, be it solicitor or journalist.

We hardly notice the hours pass (goodness gracious, lunchtime already). We are rightly in different to the reimbursement made on this basis. It almost comes as a surprise to us that we should be paid at all.

But we do like a little bit of proper compensation for the mental demands involved, and it is good to have this recognised by a professional in the field. Most of us therefore, if offered a "daily rate" of a couple of thousand pounds, such as was paid to the tribunal lawyers, will swallow our pride and get on with it. We recognise that this is the way things are, and accept it.

At least the lawyers involved were not further humiliated by being offered an hourly rate, such as was paid to Goodman public relations consultant Pat Heneghan, who accepted the initial fee of £100 an hour without complaint, and braved out the situation with his head held high until decency prevailed and he was properly honoured with a weekly fee (£1,500).

I notice, too, that one solicitor was paid £2,500 a day when he attended the tribunal unaccompanied by counsel, but only £1,500 when he attended with counsel in tow. The discrepancy arises because while unaccompanied, according to the Taxing Master, it was quite clear that the solicitor "had indeed a more onerous task to perform against the cream of the Bar."

But say ... the solicitor had never turned up at all! Why then, the defence task would have been so onerous as to justify - well, say £5,000 a day, and cheap at the price, even if competing with only the skim milk of the Bar.

The language of legal counsel remuneration is demeaning, too. A barrister is offered a brief fee, then another brief fee. Why these humiliatingly ... abrupt payments? Why the need for such brusqueness, for such churlish, curt modes of payment?

The notion of "refresher" fees is even more insulting, implying the learned counsel has forgotten overnight the details of the case in which he or she has been involved some counsel were paid refresher fees daily for up to 10 or 12 weeks, despite these eminent people being famed nationwide for their total recall of detail.

The fees paid, up to more than £2,000 daily per barrister, while perfectly reasonable with regard to the Taxing Master's "time factor amount concept, could surely never compensate for such public ignominy added to the usual mental strain, the psychic exertion, the emotional pressure, the psychological fatigue and the sheer intellectual tension.