Legal Ethics Roundup for 2022
Unless you have been living under a rock for the past year, it is unlikely to have escaped your attention that lawyers’ ethics has been a hot topic within the legal profession of late. With this in mind, as 2022 draws to a close, we thought it fitting to look back at some key events in the world of legal ethics over the past year and what we may learn from them from a thought leadership perspective…
February 2022 – Russia invades Ukraine
The numerous sanctions imposed on Russia by the UK government in response to the war against Ukraine had significant implications for law firms acting for Russian clients from the outset, including whether they could lawfully and ethically continue acting for them and whether it was ethically acceptable to operate an office from Russia. Several large international firms closed their Russian offices/severed ties with the country, whilst others pledged donations to support Ukraine as a result.
More recently, the government revoked the exemption of legal services from its sanctions strategy, which largely took away the moral quandary issue, since law firms will no longer be able to provide transactional legal advisory services to Russian clients, unless they have a license from OFSI to act.
Reflecting on wider implications of the war, these events brought the issue of client selection into the spotlight and prompted firms to review how they take on new instructions, which includes refusing to take on work that does not conform to the firm’s values. In today’s age, there is very much a drive for businesses to be responsible, to benefit society and address any negative impact they may have on it, its people and the planet, as well as a recognition that the clients a firm act for reflects on the firm and its reputation. This is something we are likely to see become more of the norm, particularly as firms look to bolster their reputation as they seek to survive the economic downturn.
March 2022 – P&O’s mass redundancies
In March, P&O Ferries hit the headlines after dismissing 800 crew members, without prior collective redundancy consultation or warning, via a pre-recorded video message and announcing plans to replace them with cheaper agency staff in a bid to secure the future viability of the business. The company were heavily criticised for their handling of the situation which was deemed to be a shocking disregard of employment law requirements. Despite the company admitting they intentionally broke the law they have thus far escaped a criminal investigation and the outcome of a civil investigation is still to be established.
The matter inevitably called into question the employment law advice given to P&O by its lawyers and highlighted the ethical tightrope that in-house lawyers may be required to walk across when faced with commercial pressures from their employer vs doing the right thing.
May 2022 – End of Phase 1 of the Post Office Horizon IT Public Inquiry
The Post Office scandal is without doubt one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in British history, involving over 700 sub-postmasters being wrongly prosecuted for theft, false accounting and/or fraud over a period of 14 years due to systemic issues with the Horizon computer accounting system. Phase 1 of the public inquiry, which looked at the Human Impact of the scandal, concluded in May 2022. The role of lawyers in the investigation and civil and criminal proceedings will be scrutinised in Phase 4 which is due to take place in May to June/July 2023.
Due to the implication of wrongdoing on the part of lawyers acting for the Post Office, the SRA is a core participant in the ongoing public inquiry and is due to decide whether to take any regulatory action against individual lawyers once the inquiry process has finished.
Whilst the jury is out on whether the lawyers involved will emerge unscathed, the controversy surrounding their role in the scandal is a stark reminder to all lawyers of the importance of taking a step back, ensuring your moral compass is pointed in the right direction and having the moral courage to take a stand against commercial pressures and the herd mentality to go along with something despite knowing that it is wrong.
Our Regulatory Director, Brian Rogers is an avid follower of the inquiry and regularly posts updates on his LinkedIn profile for those who would like to keep up to date with developments.
October 2022 – Lubna Shuja takes office as president of the Law Society
The new president has confirmed that her presidential year plan will include a focus on five key areas, one of which is professional ethics. This will involve launching a major focus on ethics in the legal profession to help members navigate the increasingly complex environment they now work within and to seek solutions to cope with the constantly changing narrative. It is very much a case of watch this space to see if this focus has the positive impact on the profession that is intended.
November 2022 – AAA Panel Session, SLAPPs and COP27
Access Legal hosted a session on Lawyer Ethics and the Future of Legal Regulation as part of our Access All Areas Event. This included not-to-be missed insights from Professor Chris Bones, CILEX Chair, Iain Miller, Partner at Kingsley Napley and Matthew Hill, CEO at the LSB, including a discussion around the importance of law firms’ culture and leaders setting a good, ethical example. A recording of the session can be viewed here.
Also in November, the SRA issued a warning notice to lawyers over the use of Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs), which reminded of the importance of lawyers acting with integrity and in a way that upholds public trust and confidence in the profession.
Furthermore, in November the COP27 Climate Change Conference took place in Sharm el-Sheikh, with legal associations coming together for the first time to discuss how to tackle the climate crisis from a legal perspective. This is an area that we are likely to see a big focus on in 2023. The role of lawyers in the climate crisis has some overlap with the client selection issues touched upon earlier and whether it is ethical to act for certain clients taking into account the potential damage this may do to the firm’s reputation.
Upcoming dates for your diary:
January 2023: In recognition of the need to upskill lawyers on ethics, we have created a new eLearning course, Ethics for Lawyers and a template Ethical Values Policy which will be available in our GRC for Law Firms training product and our Policies and Precedents for Law Firms Library from 11th January.
March 2023: To keep the conversation going, Brian Rogers will be having a fireside chat with Professor Stephen Mayson discussing ethics and regulation on 16th March at 12:30pm. You can reserve a place at the webinar here.
