SLAPP guidance: a quick comment

The SRA has issued welcome guidance on the conduct of SLAPP cases. It can be seen as part of their broader thrust to wean solicitors, and their firms, off the idea that they can act for clients as hired guns no matter what. In broad terms, and the Code is a bit more nuanced than …

What’s wrong with SRA Guidance on Confidential Information

Graeme Johnston, Jenifer Swallow and I have written a paper on this topic which we have submitted to the SRA and can be downloaded here. It begins like this... The issue of lawyer involvement in wrongdoing has risen up in the public consciousness. A critical issue for lawyers is what to do when they face …

The Home Office: Collective failure, individual insouciance?

One of the issues I am interested in is whether the courts take ethical failure in legal proceedings seriously enough. This week brings forth an interesting example to consider.  The case is an immigration one, R (HM, MA & KH) v SSHD [2022] EWHC 2729 (Admin), and it concerns the Home Office's admitted breach of its …

Class Walls

So a story in the Guardian reports Geraldine van Beuren's calls for more working class lawyers to out themselves. Having once been described as the gayest heterosexual man on the planet,* I feel a bit of outing might be appropriate. My parents certainly regarded themselves as working-class Geordies. It used to be the case that …

Ethically dysfunctional: the problem with designation in leveraged finance

Trevor Clark The Lawyer has kindly allowed me to reproduce the text of my opinion piece, published on Tuesday. Last week The Lawyer reported that lenders on the recent £3.5bn financing of The Access Group were dissatisfied with the role played by their lawyers, and with the designation model under which they were appointed. My …

President of Nowhere? Some points on Lord Neuberger being drawn into the PO Scandal

Well, how very rude I can hear the great and the good of the legal profession say. You can’t diss David Neuberger the former President of the Supreme Court KC. He's ace. So let me begin in another way, as this is partly a story of how the network, any network, the establishment, the profession, …

Trust and Ethics, has the legal sector lost its way?

I was asked to put up the text of my introduction to yesterday's LSB panel event on lawyers' ethics,. For those who don’t know, I write various things on lawyers and often on lawyers' ethics. In recent years I have covered allegations of some seriousness against lawyers in: Clifford Chance, Freshfields, Allen & Overy, Herbert …

On Substack I have been blogging a detailed critique of an independent review conducted for the Post Office Chairman. It’s lessons are of more general import. Indecent reviews often lack independence for a variety of reasons. So, I am publishing the summary here too. stream of posts is a critique that has the benefit of …

Don’t Pannick, the Lawfare Boomerang

Lord Pannick’s opinion on behalf of Boris Johnson continues to make the news. There is a suggestion this is was a misuse of public funds by the Johnson Government. Interestingly too, the Commons Committee savaged by his opinion has raised a stern retort. I am not going to analyse the opinion in depth. It is …

Not taking secrets to the grave (oh and Independent Investigations NDAs again (AGAIN!))

Ben White of Crafty Counsel has posted a really interesting interview with Pav Gill, former Head of Legal for Wirecard's Asia Pacific Region. I urge you to listen, whether lawyer or not. It draws out the story wonderfully and succinctly. Lawyers may find the quiet terror of it discomforting. I set out here quick outline …