- See Clause 27 of the Legal Services Bill 2006 (version of Bill as amended by Commons Public Bills Committee 26/06/07), available at http://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200607/cmbills/135/2007135apdf (last accessed 24 August 2007). “ILEX Seeks ‘Light Touch’ LSB for Legal Services”, ILEX Press Release (26 January 2006).
- There are some examples of discussions about the ethics of paralegals in the United States, who perform a somewhat similar role to legal executives (although “paralegal” is a label that is strongly rejected by legal executives given their formal qualification and recognition of role in statute). However, these are largely practice guides and are clear that “the rules by which attorneys must abide are always the starting point”. See, M.L. Agius, “Not Just for Lawyers—Rules of Ethics and Professional Responsibility Guide Legal Assistants in Maintaining High Standards of Service’ (2001) 80 Michigan Bar Journal 29.
- See further discussion below.
- C. Parker, “The Ethics of Advising on Regulatory Compliance: Autonomy or Independence” (2000) 28 Journal of Business Ethics 339, 342.
- Guide to the Professional Conduct of Solicitors On-line, Ch. 4 (London, Law Society, 2006).
- A. Boon and J. Levin, The Ethics and Conduct of Lawyers in England and Wales (Oxford, Hart Publishing, 1999), 89–91, and D. Nicolson and J. Webb, Professional Legal Ethics: Critical Interrogations (Oxford & New York, Oxford University Press, 1999), 60–61.
- But see Muzio and Ackroyd who argue that only true “professionals” within legal services today are partners of law firms. D. Muzio and S. Ackroyd, “On the Consequences of Defensive Professionalism: Recent Changes in the Legal Labour Process” (2005) 32 Journal of Law and Society 625, 638.
- A. Abbott, The System of Professions: An Essay on the Division of Expert Labour (London, University of Chicago Press, 1988); A. Francis, “Legal Executives and the Phantom of Legal Professionalism: The Rise and Rise of the Third Branch of the Legal Profession?” (2002) 9 International Journal of the Legal Profession 5.
- Clauses 71–111 of the Legal Services Bill 2006. Alternative Business Structures will enable solicitors and other professionals, for example barristers, legal executives, accountants and architects, to share ownership and management of an ABS firm. They will also enable non-lawyers, for example banks and supermarkets, to own such firms. See further S. Young, “Alternative Business Structures” (2006) 156 (No. 7240) New Law Journal 1391–3; J. Dow and C. Lapuerta, “The Benefits of Multiple Ownership Models in Law Services” (London, Department for Constitutional Affairs, 2005), available at http://www.dca.goc.uk/legalsys/dow-lapuerta.pdf (last accessed 24 August 2007).
- In Husband's terms, become “morally active practitioners”: C. Husband, “The Morally Active Practitioner and the Ethics of Anti-Racist Social Work” in R. Hugman and D. Smith (eds), Ethical Issues in Social Work (London, Routledge, 1995).
- Legal executives would fall short of the necessary characteristics or resources to be considered anything other than a semi-profession (A. Etzioni, The Semi-Professions and their Organisations: Teachers, Nurses and Social Workers (New York, Free Press, 1969)) and to hold anything other than a subordinate jurisdiction (Abbott, supra n. 8).
- A. Francis, “‘I'm Not One of Those Women's Libber Type People But...’: Gender, Class and Professional Power within the Third Branch of the English Legal Profession” (2006) 15 Social and Legal Studies 475.
- For methodology see Francis, supra n. 12, 477–8.
- D. Luban, “The Ethics of Wrongful Obedience” in D. Rhode (ed), Ethics in Practice: Lawyers' Roles, Responsibilities and Regulation (New York, Oxford University Press, 2000).
- Rule 7(6) of the Solicitors' Practice Rules 1990 (last amended 8 June 2006) (London, Law Society).
- Solicitors Act 1974, s. 20.
- The Courts and Legal Services Act 1990 enables Fellows to be awarded extended rights of audience (approved by SI 1077/98). The Access to Justice Act 1999 (s. 40) awarded Fellows the right to conduct litigation.
- The level of autonomy with which they operate is, of course, extremely contingent upon practice settings. For example, those working in the largest firms typically reported much greater levels of control exercised by supervising partners. This control extended to surveillance as to their whereabouts within the firm and strong expectations of attendance at out-of-hours client entertainment events (Francis, supra n. 12, 480).
- Department for Constitutional Affairs, The Future of Legal Services: Putting Consumers First (London, Department for Constitutional Affairs, 2005, CM6679), 39.
- See President's Speech ILEX Graduation (30 January 2007) www.ilex.org.uk, for a summary of recent achievements.
- From January 2007 the Solicitors' Regulation Authority has exercised the Law Society's regulatory functions. The Law Society separated the governance of its regulatory and representative functions in advance of the Legal Services Bill 2006. This paper will refer to the Law Society's regulatory powers rather than the SRA's for simplicity, and because part of the argument deals with historical relationships between ILEX and the Law Society. Future research on legal services regulation will, of course, have to take into account the relationships between the Legal Services Board and the various Approved Regulators, of which the SRA will surely be one.
- D. Luban, A. Strudler and D. Wasserman, “Moral Responsibility in the Age of Bureaucracy” (1988) 90 Michigan Law Review 2348, 2365; A. Sarat, “Ethics in Litigation: Rhetoric of Crisis, Realities of Practice” in D. Rhode (ed), Ethics in Practice: Lawyers' Roles, Responsibilities and Regulation (New York, Oxford University Press, 2000), 155–9.
- D. Hogg, “Investigating Committee Report“, ILEX Annual Report (Bedford, ILEX, 2006), 6.
- “Bradford Man Posing as Immigration Lawyer Struck Off by Legal Regulator”, ILEX Press Release (6 July 2007), available at http://www.ilex.org.uk/press_office/article.asp?theid=642&themode=1 (last accessed 28 August 2007).
- See for example “Legal Executive Admits Will Theft”, Northern Echo 16 August 2002, available at http://archive.thisisnortheast.co.uk/2002/08/16/124306.html (last accessed 28 August 2007). The total charges amounted to theft of over £102,000 from clients' will and trust funds over seven years. See generally “Legal Briefings: Hearing of the Disciplinary Tribunal and Appeals Tribunal“, The Legal Executive 4 July 2007.
- See for example Saunders: 9009/2004; Kendrick, Law Society Gazette 20 September 2001. In the case of Graham Wheelband, “an experienced member of the Institute of Legal Executives”, in May 2004, the SDT refused to revoke a s. 43 order made against Wheelband notwithstanding that the suggestion to behave in the way which had given rise to the disciplinary proceedings had in fact come from the supervising solicitor. Factual circumstances like this go to the heart of the tensions facing legal executives in exercising moral agency from the basis of a subordinate professional jurisdiction.
- David Scott Banks v Wheelers (a firm): Yvonne Banks v Wheelers (a firm) [1998] QBD LTL 16/1/98 (unreported elsewhere). The case involved the advice given by a legal executive to the couple concerned. During the case it emerged that attendance notes of the meeting in question had been altered before being forwarded to the couple's new solicitors. The judge rejected the legal executive's claim that she altered them to give more information before she left the firm. He held that by altering the attendance notes she had intended to give the impression to both her employer and the plaintiffs' new representatives that the notes were contemporaneous. The judge thus regarded her credibility as a witness as tainted. In Woodrow v Chalk Catering Ltd [1999] CLY 569, the legal executive's failure to adhere to the time limits specified in a civil claim was described by the judge as “reprehensible and perverse”.
- While the professional body may view these letters as distinguishing, one of the profession's key problems is that the public have certainly never recognised them as signifying anything in particular. Moreover ILEX faced mockery from its very inception for this choice of distinguishing letters, one solicitor suggesting that the letters would simply “recall to some people the perambulating propensities of a certain cat” (Law Society Gazette March 1962, 165).
- S. Banks, Ethics, Accountability and the Social Professions (Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 116–21. See also A. Dawson, “Professional Codes of Practice and Ethical Conduct” (1994) 11 Journal of Applied Philosophy 145; M. Larson, The Rise of Professionalism: A Sociological Analysis (London, University of California Press, 1977); and D. Nicolson, “Making Lawyers Moral? Ethical Codes and Moral Character” (2005) 25 Legal Studies 601.
- And one which suffered another blow as the Government declined to support Lord Kingsland's amendment to the Access to Justice Act 1999 which attempted to make misuse of the title “legal executive” a criminal offence (Hansard (HL Deb) 28 January 1999, vol 596 cols 1175–8).
- J. Sidaway and T. Punt, Paralegal Staff Working in Solicitors' Firms (London, Law Society, 1997), 15, 31.
- The ILEX Press Office monitor the use of the term legal executive and attempt to correct its misuse, whether by the media itself or by unqualified practitioners. As one ILEX council member said during an interview with the author: “We've had the odd person committing a crime [who]... described themselves as a Legal Executive. Of course that's given the PR department loads to go on... [Responding to this allows us to] get to another section of the public [in terms of raising profile and explaining role].”
- Francis, supra n. 12.
- The following overview draws exclusively on Western moral theory, given the parallels I seek to make between these ethical traditions and Anglo-American conceptions of professionalism.
- M. Timmons, Moral Theory: An Introduction (Lanham, MD, Rowman & Littlefield, 2002), 157.
- Nicolson and Webb, supra n. 6, 18.
- D. Richards, “Moral Theory, the Developmental Psychology of Ethical Autonomy and Professionalism” [1981] Journal of Legal Education 359, 363.
- R. Norman, The Moral Philosophers: An Introduction to Ethics (Oxford University Press, 1998), 94–97.
- J. Oakley and D. Cocking, Virtue Ethics and Professional Roles (Cambridge University Press, 2006), 15–19.
- Nicolson and Webb, supra n. 6, 32.
- Z. Bauman, Post-Modern Ethics (Oxford, Blackwell, 1993), 32.
- Nicolson and Webb, supra n. 6, 47.
- Dawson, supra n. 29 and Nicolson, supra n. 29. Hugman suggests that the post-modern professional condition requires “an emphasis on principles and values and a reluctance to be tightly prescriptive”: R. Hugman, “Professional Values and Ethics in Social Work: Reconsidering Post-Modernism“ (2003) 33 British Journal of Social Work 1025, 1037.
- A. Gewirth, Reason and Morality (Chicago, IL, University of Chicago Press, 1978), 24.
- Gewirth suggests that “agency is an absolute or non-comparative condition” (ibid, 124). This paper's concern is over whether one may possess absolute agency in one sphere of one's life, while lacking the necessary characteristics to qualify as an agent in another.
- For Freidson, it is the autonomy that professions hold over their work that is the core distinction between them and other occupations: E. Friedson, The Profession of Medicine: A Study of the Sociology of Applied Medicine (New York, Dodd Mead & Co, 1970), 82.
- E. Friedson, Professionalism Reborn: Theory, Prophecy and Policy (Cambridge, Polity Press, 1994), 10.
- A. Carr-Saunders and P. Wilson, The Professions (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1933).
- “... incorporat[ing] uncritically much of the profession's appearances and ideological self-perceptions” (Larson, supra n. 29, 9).
- Abbott, supra n. 8, 59.
- Larson, supra n. 29, 53.
- The professions argue that their innate altruism, safeguarding society's interests as well as their own clients, will mitigate against the power asymmetries created by the monopolistic project (Larson, supra n. 29, 56–63).
- E. Hughes, Men and Their Work (Westport, Greenwood Press, 1981, orig pub 1958), 78–80.
- Carr-Saunders and Wilson, supra n. 48, 497.
- As Abel argues, “Professions persuade the State to protect them from market forces by arguing that commercialism is inconsistent with their noble calling. At the same time professions invoke market imperatives to resist state control, insisting that they must preserve their ‘independence’ to serve their clients loyally”: R. Abel, “Between Market and State: The Legal Profession in Turmoil” (1989) 52 Modern Law Review 285, 285.
- Guide to Professional Conduct of Advocates (Edinburgh, Faculty of Advocates, 1988), cited in Nicolson, supra n. 29, 613.
- Law Society, Independence and Quality: The Law Society's Response to the Consultation Paper on the Review of the Regulation of Legal Services in England and Wales (London, Law Society, 2004), 21.
- Luban supra n. 14, 94 notes that the Codes are almost entirely individualistic in their focus, seeing lawyers as “largely self-contained decision-makers flying solo”. See also S. Peppet, “Lawyers' Bargaining Ethics, Contract and Collaboration: The End of the Legal Profession and the Beginning of Professional Pluralism” (2005) 90 Iowa Law Review 475, 500.
- Parker, supra n. 3, 342. However, see Wasserstrom's argument about the amorality of the autonomous decision-making of lawyers: R. Wasserstrom, “Lawyers as Professionals: Some Moral Issues” (1975) 5 Human Rights 1.
- Abbott, supra n. 8, 70.
- Ibid,72.
- See, for example, the Solicitors' Code of Conduct, Ch. 4. However, it is important to acknowledge that such provisions only take account of those lawyers employed outside of law firm structures. Future ethical regulation will also of course have to take into account the implications of professionals from different disciplines working together within the Alternative Business Structures proposed by the Legal Services Bill 2006, clauses 71–111.
- J. Liaschenko and E. Peter, “Nursing Ethics and Conceptualisations of Nursing: Profession, Practice and Work” (2004) 46 Journal of Advanced Nursing 488, 490. Witz describes the nursing profession as invoking dual closure strategies to challenge the task demarcations of doctors. The nursing professional project also sought to emphasise a distinctive skill set and knowledge base, focusing on the feminine qualities of care-giving: A. Witz, Professions and Patriarchy (London, Routledge, 1992), 142. Again, legal executives have always struggled to articulate a distinctive knowledge base, given their reliance on the legal knowledge of their employers—solicitors (Francis, supra n. 8, 19).
- Francis, supra n. 8, 22.
- Liaschenko and Peter, supra n. 63, 491.
- Friedson, supra n. 46, 82.
- W. Tadd, “Accountability” in R. Chadwick (ed), Ethics and the Professions (Aldershot, Avebury, 1994), 92.
- Tadd, supra n. 67, 99.
- Tadd, supra n. 67, 98.
- Francis, supra n. 12, 485–6.
- L. May, The Socially Responsive Self: Social Theory and Professional Ethics (Chicago, IL, University of Chicago Press, 1994), 5.
- A. Francis, “Legal Ethics, the Marketplace and the Fragmentation of Legal Professionalism” (2005) 12 International Journal of the Legal Profession 173.
- May, supra n. 71, 2.
- See also Parker, supra n. 3 on the competing loyalties and pressures posing ethical dilemmas for internal corporate compliance officers.
- May, supra n. 71, 110.
- Similarly, Parker argues that “compliance advisors are better served by an ethical ideal that recognises their intimate inter-relationship with their employers” (supra n. 3, 349).
- May, supra n. 71, 6.
- D. Luban, “Partisanship, Betrayal and Autonomy in the Lawyer-Client Relationship: A Reply to Stephen Ellman” (1990) 90 Columbia Law Review 1004, 1038.
- Abbott, supra n. 8.
- Francis, supra n. 8.
- A problem underlined by a recent letter to the Legal Executive journal, with the correspondent complaining that job advertisements appearing in that same publication still suggested that Fellowship was an optional job requirement for many firms. R. Hayman, “Legal Executive, Ideally ILEX Qualified”, The Legal Executive 23 February 2005.
- Francis, supra n. 8, 16.
- See Barclays v Coleman [2000] 1 All ER 385; see also Wheeler, supra n. 24, which concerned a firm's liability for the actions of its legal executive employee.
- See for example the report of an ILEX tribunal hearing of a student passing herself off as a qualified Fellow (Foster: 9/12/04, http://www.ilexjournal.co.uk/viewpoint/article.asp?theid=1061&themode=1, last accessed 28 August 2007). Incidentally the ILEX tribunal decision was only taken subsequent to the earlier issue of a s. 43 order by the Solicitors' Disciplinary Tribunal.
- Moreover, some legal journalists appear less than well informed about the status and qualifications of legal executives, much to the understandable anger of Fellows. Clare Dyer, writing in The Guardian about the Government's plans to expand the pool from which judicial applicants are drawn, described legal executives as “non-lawyers”. Frances Gibb in The Times dealt with the story along similar lines. See “Viewpoint“, The Legal Executive 5 March 2005 and 30 August 2005).
- The question of transparency over professional qualifications raises important issues in relation to breach of contract (Pearless de Rougemount Co v Pilbrow (No 2) [1999] 3 All ER 355), professional conduct (Rule 2 (iii) ILEX Code of Conduct), and common ethical obligations to be truthful (see eg Oakley and Cocking, supra n. 39, 93)— although even this may be contextually contingent: see Gewirth (supra n. 44, 197–8) arguing that lying to prevent murder may be morally justified.
- See “Viewpoint”, The Legal Executive, eg October 2003 and September 1999.
- H. Wilensky, “The Professionalization of Everyone” (1964) 70 American Journal of Sociology 137, 142.
- Interestingly, many moral theorists note that this stage of moral development coincides with formal stages of professional education—ostensibly providing a real opportunity for new professionals to engage in moral development at precisely the point at which their sense of professional and moral selves are taking shape (Nicolson, supra n. 29, 616). In particular see J. Rest and D. Navarez, “The College Experience and Moral Development” in W. M. Kurtines and J.L. Gewirtz (eds), Handbook of Moral Behaviour and Development (Hillsdale, NJ, L. Erlbaum, 1991). See also Richard, supra n. 37, 361.
- See E. Friedson, “Professionalism as Model and Ideology” in R. Nelson, D. Trubek and R. Solomon (eds), Lawyers' Ideals/Lawyers Practices: Transformations in the American Legal Profession (Ithaca and London, Cornell University Press, 1992) and see also H. Sommerlad and P. Sanderson, Gender, Choice and Commitment: Women Solicitors in England and Wales and the Struggle for Equal Status (Aldershot, Ashgate, 1998) on the gendered constructions of “commitment” as a criterion for advancement within the legal profession.
- ILEX Membership Survey (Bedford, ILEX, 2000).
- The issue as to whether “understandable” behaviour is “excusable” behaviour will be considered further below.
- Oakley and Cocking, supra n. 39, 141, 151; Peppet, supra n. 58, 501.
- Wasserstrom, supra n. 59, 6.
- Francis, supra n. 72.
- Conversely perhaps, the lack of agency may make unchallenging adherence to norms of ethical behaviour (whether informal or those set out in the Codes) more likely (of course, virtue ethicists would dispute how “ethical” such behaviour really is). Moreover, it may be that the traditional absence of legal executives from the “race for partnership” (R. Lee, Firm Views—Work of and Work in the Largest Law Firms (London, Law Society, 1999)) may render them less susceptible to the pressures faced by assistant solicitors.
- Notwithstanding, of course that the effectiveness of such Codes has been subject to sustained critical scrutiny. See eg Dawson, supra n. 29; Nicolson and Webb, supra n. 6; W. Simon, The Practice of Justice: A Theory of Lawyers' Ethics (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1998).
- Luban, supra n. 14, 161.
- Z. Bauman, Alone Again: Ethics after Certainty (London, Demos, 1994), 13.
- P. Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice (Cambridge University Press, 1977), 80.
- See J. Griffiths-Baker, Serving Two Masters: Conflicts of Interest in the Modern Law Firm (Oxford, Hart Publishing, 2002), 187, and Lee, supra n. 96, 25.
- Nicolson and Webb, supra n. 6, 238–9; R. O'Dair, Legal Ethics: Text and Materials (London, Butterworths, 2001), 187–245.
- P. Bourdieu and L. Wacquant, An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology (Cambridge, Polity Press, 1992), 24.
- N. Toren, Social Work: The Case of a Semi-Profession (Beverly Hills/London, Sage Publications, 1972), 142–3.
- B. Beagan, “Micro Inequities and Everyday Inequalities: ‘Race’, Gender, Sexuality and Class in Medical School” (2001) 26 Canadian Journal of Sociology 583, 600.
- Bourdieu and Wacquant, supra n. 103, 24.
- Hugman, supra n. 43, 1029.
- For example, the overarching values of the Nursing Code categorically state that practitioners are “personally accountable” and must “act to identify and minimise risk to patients and clients” (p. 3). Section 8.2 is clear in that it demands that nurses “act quickly to protect patients and clients from risk if you have good reason to believe that you or your colleague, from your own or another profession, may not be fit to practise for reasons of conduct health or competence”, and that this will involve reporting (NMC Code of Professional Conduct: Standards for Conduct, Performance and Ethics (London, Nursing and Midwifery Council, 2004)). See also British Association of Social Workers, BASW Code: 4 (2(j)).
- S. Scott-Hunt and H. Lim, “To Pay Suspicious Attention: Following the Weave of ‘Mixed Logics' in Women's Ethical Decision-Making” (2005) 13 Feminist Legal Studies 205, 217.
- S. Ray, “Whistleblowing and Organizational Ethics” (2006) 13 Nursing Ethics 438.
- Whistle-blowers are accorded legal protection in very specific circumstances by s. 105 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 (as amended by the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998).
- Scott-Hunt and Lim, supra n. 109.
- G. Hunt, “Comment on ‘Whistleblowing and Boundary Violations'” (2003) 10 Nursing Ethics 537.
- P. Judd, “Whistleblowing” (1999) 21 Journal of Business Ethics 77.
- ILEX Code of Conduct—there are familiar invocations not to reveal confidential information (2(ii)). In the Law Society's On-line Guide, Chapter 15 sets out detailed guidance, in particular on the interplay with Practice Rule 16.
- O'Dair, supra n. 102, 134–7. See also the core principles of legal services under Clause 1(3)(e) of the Legal Services Bill 2006.
- P. Dimaggio and W. Powell, “The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields” in P. Dimaggio and W. Powell (eds), The Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis (Chicago, IL, University of Chicago Press, 1991), 69.
- Francis, supra n. 8.
- Liaschenko and Peter, supra n. 63.
- Francis, supra n. 8.
- Francis, supra n. 12, 489.
- Q. Johnstone and J. Flood, “Paralegals in American and English Law Offices” (1982) 2 Windsor Yearbook of Access to Justice 152.
- Francis, supra n. 12, 484.
- Francis, supra n. 12, 489. The 2007 ILEX President, Lesley Graham, who “left school at 16“, is admittedly a striking exception to this. See “Presidential Year Ahead for Manchester Woman”, ILEX Press Release, 19 July 2007, available at http://www.ilex.org.uk/press_office/article.asp?theid=641&themode=0 (last accessed 28 August 2007).
- Lively also notes that many paralegals faced the problem of lawyers who “still think of you as a secretary”. K. Lively, “Reciprocal Emotion Management: Working Together to Maintain Stratification in Private Law Firms” (2000) 27 Work and Occupations 32, 47.
- Francis, supra n. 12, 487. See also Peternelji-Taylor on the primary loyalties of nurses being to their colleagues. C. Peternelji-Taylor, “Whistleblowing and Boundary Violations: Exposing a Colleague in the Forensic Milieu” (2003) 10 Nursing Ethics 526, 530.
- M. McNamee, “The Guilt of Whistling-blowing: Conflicts in Action Research and Educational Ethnography” (2001) 35 Journal of Philosophy of Education 423, 438.
- May, supra n. 71.
- Scott-Hunt and Lim, supra n. 109, 216.
- Ibid.
- K. Ahern and S. McDonald, “The Beliefs of Nurses who were Involved in a Whistleblowing Event” (2002) 38 Journal of Advanced Nursing 303.
- NMC (2004) Nursing and Midwifery Council Code of Professional Conduct: Standards for Conduct, Performance and Ethics, 3.
- Scott-Hunt and Lim, supra n. 109, 215.
- Francis, supra n. 12.
- Luban, supra n. 14, 97. The Milgram experiments involved volunteers being directed to administer an escalating series of electric shocks to someone they believed to be another participant. The direction to continue, to the point of the “participant” “collapsing”, came from an authority figure in a white coat. Other aspects of the study sought people's responses to how they thought that they and others would behave in the described circumstances. Note: Cave and Holm warn of the dangers of simplistic summaries of the Milgram experiments as a basis for justifying bioethical experiments. Hopefully my brief summary will suffice for the purposes of this paper's different focus. See E. Cave and S. Holm, “Milgram and Tuskegee: Paradigm Research Projects in Bioethics” (2003) 11 Health Care Analysis 27.
- Luban, supra n. 14, 102.
- Ibid, 94, 103.
- Ibid, 115.
- “A brain tumor... can cause changes to a person's cognitive (thinking) abilities, behavior and/or emotions... [including] depression, irritability, anxiety, mood swings, obsessive compulsive tendencies, dis-inhibition and withdrawal”: Essential Guide to Brain Tumors, National Brain Tumor Foundation (www.braintumor.org).
- A. Honneth, H. Kicyba and B. Schwibbs, “The Struggle for Symbolic Order: An Interview with Pierre Bourdieu” (1986) 3 Theory, Culture and Society 35, 42.
- Bourdieu and Wacquant, supra n. 103, 133.
- Ibid, 24.
- J. Webb, “Turf Wars and Market Control: Competition and Complexity in the Market for Legal Services” (2004) 11 International Journal of the Legal Profession 81.
- S. Boggan, “Call Him Mr Loophole“, The Guardian, 27 January 2006 reports the comments of Nick Freeman, a defence lawyer specialising in motoring offences: “Morally I can't [square clearing a drink driver on a technicality] but ethically I can... I am a lawyer and my job is to give my clients the best defence I can.”
- Rule 2(iii) of the Code of Conduct and Guide to Good Practice for the Legal Executive, Point A5.
- Nicolson's discussion of context and codes could take some account of this (supra n. 29, 620–4).
- Timmons, supra n. 35, 42.
- British Association of Social Workers, BASW Code. Similar provisions exist for social workers in the US: “When necessary social workers who believe that a colleague has acted unethically should take action through appropriate formal channels (such as contacting... regulatory body)” (2.11(d) NASW Code of Practice).
- It is worth noting that this is something that the SDT, for example, has been reluctant to do. In the s. 43 case involving Graeme Wheelband in May 2004, the SDT upheld the order, even though there had never been an actual allegation of dishonesty made against this individual. In this case the suggestion to behave in the way which had given rise to the disciplinary proceedings had in fact come from the supervising solicitor. Nevertheless, the SDT clearly felt that as an experienced legal executive, the applicant had sufficient agency to shoulder responsibility for his actions.
- B. Cole, Trends in the Solicitors' Profession 2005 (London, Law Society, 2006).
Legal Ethics
Volume 10, 2007 - Issue 2