Lawyers must get better at defending themselves when they are ‘scapegoated’ by government, a high profile criminal barrister said today.  Speaking at Legal Action Group’s housing law conference today, Robert Rinder, star of ITV daytime show Judge Rinder, was asked what lawyers can do to improve public understanding about their role and the role of the courts.

Rinder replied: ‘One of the difficulties is there is a common law tradition where judges do not do interviews. We do not exist in the public sphere to defend ourselves because the answer is in the judgment.’

For generations that was ‘functionable and workable’, he said. But ‘we now live in an age of social media that enables the government, as seen in the last 48 hours, to cynically attempt to create legislation they know is going to fail, they know it’s not likely to be lawful, they know they're not going to succeed… because lawyers do not defend themselves publicly and do not know how best to reach into the community… and [the government] will always have the scapegoating of lawyers when things go wrong.’

Rinder called for a more sophisticated, organised social media strategy to highlight what happens after legislation is passed. For instance, the government's controversial legal aid cuts left 'great big black spots across the country'.

Rinder is a legal services ambassador for homelessness charity Shelter and said the organisation has a dedicated legal department with its own communications team, which is enormously effective.

‘We need a joined-up strategy across all of the professional organisations – the Bar Council, Law Society, NGOs. Where it appears that the lawyers are being scapegoated as the reason for what on the face of it is unlawful legislation, the rights of individuals’ access to justice is being removed, we need a collective strategy where we can use this gift of the platform of social media, have statements ready and simultaneously send them out.’

Prime minister Boris Johnson last week criticised lawyers who he said were attempting to undermine the Home Office’s immigration policy. He told a Cabinet meeting that ‘what the criminal gangs are doing and what those who effectively are abetting the work of the criminal gangs are doing is undermining people's confidence [and] general acceptance of immigration’.

His latest attack prompted the Law Society and Bar Council to issue a joint statement urging the prime minister to stop attacking legal professionals ‘who are simply doing their jobs’.