An influential group of peers is the latest to call for compulsory ethical training for lawyers ‘throughout their career’.
‘Trust in the broader legal profession is important and politicians should seek to avoid contributing to unjustified criticism of legal professionals,’ the Lords constitution committee counsels in its Rule of Law report. ‘Nonetheless, while some factors influencing public perception of legal professions are outside their control, public trust in the ethical conduct of lawyers has undoubtedly been shaken in recent years by instances of poor conduct.’
Their lordships steer clear of specifics, but the report’s footnotes tellingly include a reference to ethical crusader professor Richard Moorhead’s seminal 2024 lecture ‘The Post Office and their lawyers: an extraordinary orthodoxy’. Moorhead went so far as to declare that lawyers were ‘perhaps substantially responsible’ for the false convictions, ruined reputations and suicides that followed the Horizon debacle. His message was that ‘groupthink’ can be toxic in its impact.
Professional bodies are in the Lords committee’s sights – perhaps unfairly. Much is already being done to ‘review and strengthen’ ethical guidance in the wake of the poor conduct to which the peers allude.
Last month, the Law Society included draft whistleblowing guidance in its evolving ethical practice framework for in-house solicitors. A framework for lawyers in private practice will follow next year.
Super-regulator the Legal Services Board, meanwhile, is consulting on regulatory measures to ‘initiate a significant shift in how lawyers’ ethics are taught, overseen and supported in workplaces’. At the SRA, ethics has been identified as a core priority for 2025/26, alongside client protection.
A violent nudge in the direction of reform will surely come from the yet-to-be-published volume of the Post Office Inquiry report covering the role of lawyers. Knitting together the myriad initiatives presently under way into a coherent change programme promises to be the mother of all consultations in itself.
The ICAEW, the accountants’ regulator, obliges every member to do at least one day of ethics training a year. Is that one way forward – or one-size-fits-all tokenism?
Priority should certainly be given to concerns about the quality of education and training in, and assessment of, ethics in the Solicitors Qualifying Examination. Catch them young, watch them grow.
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