Crusader prefers currency of ideas

Helge Kolrud has laid down the gauntlet on issues such as confidentiality and competition.

What is more, the new CCBE president is bigger on ideology than how much lawyers earn, reports Neil Rose

Lawyers should look to themselves and their pursuit of money for part of the reason they are under scrutiny from competition authorities, regulators and governments around the world, the new head of the body representing Europe's legal professions said this week.

Norwegian lawyer Helge Kolrud, president of the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe (CCBE) for 2003, pugnaciously intends to take the fight to the outside world on issues such as confidentiality and competition, while also recognising that lawyers have to get their own house in order.

Some argue that the profession's poor reputation has contributed to the unprecedented attention lawyers are facing.

Mr Kolrud accepts that it is in some ways no surprise that lawyers have attracted the attention of the authorities as they become businessmen aiming to earn more money.

Indeed, he hopes it will 'create a reaction from the profession', so that it will ask: 'Is this the way we want to go?'

While pointing out that lawyers need to earn a good wage to ensure their independence, he says: 'More lawyers than before are willing to work as mercenaries if they're paid to be.

The problem in many firms is that if you earn extraordinary amounts of money, you get interested in earning more.'

It is vital to apply codes of conduct 'rigorously' and for senior lawyers to set an example, he asserts.

'It poses very challenging questions to partners.

If partners are greedy and not that particular about how they earn their money, they can't expect junior partners and associates to ignore that.'

Mr Kolrud, a senior partner at Oslo firm Haavind Vislie and former president of his national bar association, notes that in Norway there has been a shift in the demographics of the profession, with more and more people entering law for financial gain rather than ideology; it also has a knock-on effect to recruitment in poorer paid fields such as legal aid, an experience which holds true in England and Wales.

He is not the first senior international figure to issue such a warning.

At the International Bar Association conference in South Africa last October, Malcolm Wallis - former South African Bar Council chairman - said the view that lawyers care more about their income than human rights and the rule of law makes it hard to convince regulators that they should be treated differently when it comes to competition concerns.

Mr Kolrud notes with frustration that competition authorities have 'very little understanding' of the profession, and look at competition in law in economic terms and not social terms of access to justice.

At the same time, the profession's reputation is not the sole reason the CCBE has found itself dealing with issues such as the breaches of confidentiality introduced by money laundering legislation and potentially by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in the US.

The CCBE fought hard and with some success to limit the in-roads into confidentiality made by last year's money laundering directive.

The problem, Mr Kolrud says, is that this is a 'collision between two good principles' - maintaining confidentiality on the one hand and rooting out fraud on the other.

'Our main challenge is to convince others that the broader confidentiality is, the more we will avoid money laundering,' he says, arguing that clients need to be able to seek advice on the legality of what they are doing without the fear that their lawyer will report them at once.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is set to announce this week its plans to require lawyers to blow the whistle on wrongdoing on their clients, and the degree to which it will extend its jurisdiction to foreign lawyers who have had no more than a tangental involvement in matters before it.

'The [Sarbanes-Oxley] Act is a typical modern-times attack on confidentiality,' Mr Kolrud says.

'I think we have made the SEC understand it is a far more complex issue than they realised.'

And that is not it for Mr Kolrud's agenda: world trade liberalisation talks under the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) should lead to a lifting of restrictions in cross-border legal practice - his personal preference is to use the rights of establishment directive as a template; the CCBE is looking at common standards for legal training and continuing professional development; access to justice and legal aid provision have moved up the council's agenda at speed; while in terms of its own administration, the CCBE is having to deal with the prospect of EU expansion and bringing representatives of those countries' bars more within its structure.

Time was when being CCBE president was an almost honorary job.

That, most definitely, is no longer the case.

What is the CCBE?

- Created in 1966, it was originally known as the Conseil Consultatif de Barreaux Europenne.

While the name later changed to the Conseil de Barreaux de l'Union Europenne (Council of Bars and Law Societies of the European Union), the acronym stuck.

- It is recognised by the EU as the official voice of the union's legal profession.

Through its member law societies and bar associations, it claims to represent more than 500,000 lawyers.

- Its members are the bars and law societies of the 15 EU nations and three members of the European Economic Area: Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein.

- A further 13 countries' bars have observer status - they are mainly from eastern Europe, but also include Switzerland, Cyprus and Turkey.

- It is funded by subscriptions paid by the bars.

There are eight staff at the CCBE's headquarters in Brussels, led by secretary-general Jonathan Goldsmith, an English solicitor and former director of international at the Law Society.

- Each member sends a delegation to the CCBE's twice-yearly plenary meetings, where policy matters are decided.

A standing committee - made up of heads of delegation - meets five times a year in between plenaries.

- The UK delegation is made up of one representative from each of the law societies and bar associations of England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Despite their disparate sizes, they have an equal say in deciding the UK's policy.

The current head of the delegation is Northern Irish barrister John Thompson QC.

- Mr Kolrud is its 25th president.

Two have been from the UK: Scottish barrister David Edward in 1978-80, and English barrister John Toulmin QC in 1993.

- The elected officers are the president, first vice-president and second vice-president.

Presidents work their way up through the other two roles.

All have a one-year term.