Professional pride and unprofessional passionsThe recent press coverage of an industrial tribunal case brought by a female solicitor who was sacked when her employer discovered that she was pregnant by one of the firm's clients, has highlighted the uncertainty that surrounds this aspect of legal practice.

In this instance, the woman's claim before the industrial tribunal was unsuccessful.Yet the Law Society told the press that the woman had not been guilty of misconduct.

Here are two recent cases referred to the ombudsman in connection with related issues.Ms AMs A's father died in 1996.

Mr G, his solicitor, was named in his will as executor.

Ms A was the residuary beneficiary and her children were the beneficiaries of a trust established under the will.

As a result, Ms A visited Mr G in person and contacted him by telephone on a number of occasions, even though she was not Mr G's client.She subsequently complained to the Office for the Supervision of Solicitors (OSS) that Mr G had made improper suggestions and sexual advances towards her.

Mr G admitted to the OSS that his relationship with Ms A had 'gone too far' and that they had 'got a little bit closer' than they should have done.A friend of Ms A's who had been present on a number of occasions when Ms A was speaking to Mr G on the telephone, said that, in her opinion, Mr G's manner towa rds Ms A had been 'demeaning'.

The OSS subsequently informedMs A - without any real attempt at justifying its view - that there had been no breach of the rules of professional conduct.When pressed by Ms A for an explanation, the OSS said that, in the absence of independent evidence, it could not determine which version of events was true.From the perspective of the ombudsman, this decision was hardly convincing.

On the face of it, this was not a case in which there was no evidence at all aside from that of the solicitor and the complainant.

The evidence of Ms A's friend might not have been compelling, but it existed and needed to be addressed.

Moreover, it was not obvious that there were two different versions of events.After all, Mr G had admitted that the relationship had gone too far.

If the OSS was going to make an authoritative finding on what was an issue of some sensitivity, it needed to do so in a more considered manner.

It is true that the current Guide to the Professional Conduct of Solicitors offers little help, merely suggesting that solicitors should 'consider' whether a sexual relationship with a client might place the solicitor's interests in conflict with those of the client, or otherwise impair the solicitor's ability to act in the best interests of the client (note 9 to Principle 15.04).

Since Ms A was not Mr G's client, he would have had a simple answer to any attempted application of this principle.However, in the ombudsman's view, of more relevance in this case was principle 17.01 which requires that solicitors should not use their position to take advantage of another person.

In this instance, the suggestion was that an older, better educated, more powerful man had put a vulnerable, younger woman in an unwelcome situation.

Mr G himself had told the OSS that things had 'gone too far', but suggested that there were mitigating circumstances.These are difficult matters to judge, and in the absence of any clear published principle of conduct, almost impossible to judge authoritatively.

Invariably such cases raise contentious evidential issues too.

Yet this is the sort of complaint that the OSS has to adjudicate on if the profession is to be competently regulated.

In this instance it had not done so to the ombudsman's satisfaction, and she accordingly recommended that it reconsider.Mr SMr S was charged with assisting the importation of illegal immigrants and was facing a lengthy prison sentence if convicted.

He was not impressed to discover that his wife, who was to be a defence witness, had given a statement to his solicitor, Mr L, saying he was guilty as charged.

He was even less impressed when he discovered that Mr L was having a sexual relationship with his wife.

Mr S wondered how he could be expected to have any confidence in his legal representation in those circumstances.The ombudsman wondered that too.

The OSS by contrast, had taken an altogether more relaxed view of the situation, explaining to Mr S that there had been no misconduct on the part of Mr L because there is no rule preventing a solicitor from having sex with a client's wife.

This is indeed the case.However, it hardly seemed to be the point.

The limited express guidance on this issue does talk about the need to consider possible conflicts of interest.

It does not take a great deal of imagination to conceive of such a conflict in this case.

That was exactly what Mr S was pointing out.

It was surely either naive or disingenuous of the OSS to side-step the issue entirely.

The ombudsman recommended that the OSS reconsider.