Secondments, Conflicts, and Banking

James Hurley has an interesting story in today's Times about professional advisers breaching confidentiality during secondments to RBS's bank Global Restructuring Group. It states some of the allegations relate to 'lawyers' and highlights one case involving a solicitor. Promontory highlighted the case of a solicitor on secondment at GRG acting as a “relationship manager” on a …

Liberté, égalité, fraternité: Professional Principles en France

A friend has emailed me a translation of professional principles applicable to lawyers in France. There are interesting differences from the position over here, which in the light of the ongoing debate around Frances Andrade and the criminal justice systems treatment of witnesses and defendants bear an airing. In France, I understand, all lawyers must …

Adversarial Anxieties: Let’s not stop asking questions

The tragic death of Frances Andrade is being linked with her experience of the criminal justice system; both her cross-examination (see the Guardian story here) and alleged inadequacies in witness support (see the Evening Standard here).  It’s fair to say that a causal link between Ms Andrade’s death and the trial is speculation; albeit highly …

Curb your enthusiasm: time to act on finessing witness statements?

An interesting story in the Lawyer about Peter Smith J criticising SNR Denton for their handling of witnesses and witness statements.  I was reminded immediately of Gloster J's comments in the Abramovich-Berenovsky case about the polishing of evidence.  The tension between lawyers duty to the client and their duty uphold the rule of law and the proper administration of …

Hacking*: Is Litigation Funding Compromising the Lawyer Client Relationship?

There's a very interesting story from Roy Greenslade on the Guardian about journalists arrested in the ongoing hacking investigations. If his informants are right then there is a serious risk that News International funding of employee defences is compromising the administration of justice in these cases. He reports that some of the journalists, "would like …

Conflicts of Interest? Lawyers and the Public Interest

In this talk* I am going to to focus on a fundamental and, I think, increasingly important, conflict of interest; a conflict at the heart of several current controversies surrounding public and legal life.  That is the conflict between the public interest and the client’s interest. I am going to argue that the problems we …

What’s the story with solicitors’ complaints and LeO?

The Legal Services Board have published an interesting summary of research on the legal services market which is well worth a read. Especially if you a member of the legal profession, aren't really up for the vigorous competition coming your way and like getting depressed about the future. There is, though, one possible good news …

Judgment-based practice and lawyers as gate-keepers: a return to ethics?

The business pages tell us corporate leaders, perhaps cowed by reactions to executive pay and the more general desire to rebuild the legitimacy of capitalism, are increasingly interested in ethics. An interesting question is whether this change, if it is real, will permeate into the way lawyers advise their clients. The conventional view is that …