Crown and magistrates courts across England and Wales were emptied of lawyers on Monday morning as criminal barristers and solicitors walked out in protest over government plans to cut legal aid.

The unprecedented action led to all but one of the 18 courts at the Old Bailey in central London being deserted or locked as hearings were postponed or cancelled.

Barristers, in their wigs and gowns, and solicitors waved placards opposing the cuts as they gathered outside the entrances to courts in London, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Preston, Birmingham, Newcastle, Winchester, Bristol and Cardiff.

The Ministry of Justice claimed there had only been minimal disruption, but many judges and court clerks, anticipating the boycott, had rescheduled cases until 2pm when lawyers returned to work.

The half-day demonstration, the first time barristers have taken such action in legal history, was aimed at forcing the justice secretary, Chris Grayling, into a last-minute rethink of proposals designed to save £220m a year from the criminal legal aid budget.

Nigel Lithman QC, chairman of the Criminal Bar Association, said that if few cases had been cancelled it was due to advance warning. "I have been told by a number of judges that they have done what they can do to facilitate our half-day of action," he said.

"There has been a very large response by barristers. We had 150 people outside the court in Southwark, in south London, 150 in Manchester, 90 in Preston and many more in other cities. The legal aid minister, Shailesh Vara, claimed that the average figures for criminal barristers' earnings was £84,000, but the government's own figures published this month show that on average legal aid baristers were earning £50,000 in fees a year – and after VAT, chambers fees and other expenses that's equivalent to a taxable income of £32,000."

Outside the Old Bailey, Mukul Chawla, QC, said the cuts would be socially divisive and would have "a disproportionate impact on those who want to work in the profession who come from disadvantaged backgrounds".

Reading a statement on behalf of the south-eastern circuit outside the central criminal court, Chawla said "the raid on legal aid" would mean "the guilty go unpunished and the innocent are wrongly convicted".

More than 50 barristers joined the protest at the Old Bailey, where 10 new trials and six ongoing trials were disrupted, including a murder case, a hearing involving an alleged sex ring and the phone-hacking trial.

Another barrister, Ed Vickers, said the damage caused by the cuts would be long term. "What we are really concerned about is the effect on justice in five, 10 or 15 years' time," he explained. "Who is going to prosecute the murder, rape, terrorist cases because talented and able people are not going to join the criminal bar because they cannot afford to?"

He said barristers, like many students, are saddled with huge debt before they can practise, with some carrying loans of up to £70,000 before they secure a tenancy in a chambers.

Former director of public prosecutions Lord Macdonald condemned the cuts, saying: "These are people who are working extremely hard for low incomes and 30% cuts on top of that, in circumstances where the legal aid budget was underspent by £56m last year, seems unreasonable," he said. "I fear that Mr Grayling is in danger of destroying something that he doesn't fully understand, which is a criminal justice system which is as good as any in the world, which is fair and which supports people who don't have money as well as people who do."

The shadow justice secretary, Sadiq Khan, said: "No one wants to see disruption in our courts but this unprecedented action shows how relations between the legal profession and David Cameron's government have collapsed as a result of policies which could restrict access to our courts to only those who can afford it."

Frances Cook, the chief executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, addressed a protest outside Westminster magistrates court. "Abolition of legal aid for prisoners, including teenagers and mothers separated from their babies, is politically motivated and not based on hard financial sense," she said. "It will mean people spend months, or even years, longer in jail unnecessarily because they will no longer get legal support to get the courses they need in prison and to move through the prison maze."

Outside Bristol crown court, barrister Ramin Pakrooh said the cuts would mean the guilty would walk free and the innocent would be punished. "For the last six years, the government has slashed legal aid funding," he said. "It is about to do so again. In real terms, for barristers who do criminal legal aid work, that will amount to a 41% cut."

Outside Southwark crown court, Ashitey Ollennu, a criminal barrister with 33 years' experience, said: "I originally come from Ghana and the legal system there is based on British justice. We take pride in British justice but these cuts are going to destroy it."

Giles Newell, a barrister who has been practising for seven years, was among the protesters. "We are fed up. We have been silent too long. There's a perception in the Ministry of Justice that we are all fat cats. It's misleading," he said.

The Bar Standards Board warned that any barristers who stay away from court would almost certainly be in breach of their professional code of conduct with "very serious consequences".

The Ministry of Justice insisted barristers working full-time on taxpayer-funded criminal work were on average paid £84,000 in fee income last year. The department also pointed out that more than 1,200 barristers carrying out taxpayer-funded criminal work received £100,000 in fee income last year. Six were paid more than £500,000 in fee income.

An MoJ spokesperson said: "At around £2bn a year we have one of the most expensive legal aid systems in the world, and it would remain very generous even after reform … We entirely agree lawyers should be paid fairly for their work, and believe our proposals do just that. We also agree legal aid is a vital part of our justice system – that's why we have to find efficiencies to ensure it remains sustainable and available to those most in need of a lawyer."

A spokesperson for Her Majesty's Courts and Tribunal Service said: "The impact was limited and manageable. Ninety-five per cent of listed magistrates' courtrooms sat, as did 73% of crown courtrooms."

• This article was amended on 7 January 2014. An earlier version misspelled Mukul Chawla's name as Mugul Chawla.