Lawyers prescribed respect as doctors go on the sick listThe courts no longer display an overly deferential attitude to doctors, the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Woolf, said last week, adding that one profession had received even more deferential treatment - lawyers.

In a lecture at University College London, Lord Woolf said a series of 'well-publicised scandals' hadcontributed to the collapse of an 'over-deferential approach captured by the phrase "doctor knows best"'.

The balance was now 'about right', he added.Lord Woolf said that this attitude had its origins in an age when 'judges displayed a natural reluctance to make findings of negligence against any members of any honourable profession.' He added that if the courts were deferential to the medical profession, they were 'even more generous to the legal profession.

It is only recently that a barrister could be held liable for negligence'.

Jeremy Fleming