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JG, As a non-lawyer, member of Justice and Liberty, with lawyers in the family, working hard, often defending clients via legal aid, and never going to acquire more than moderate wealth, I share the considered belief (not ethereal "feeling"), because there has long seemed to be abundant evidence for it, "that lawyers are both enabling, and then helping to hide, the salting away of millions, on which more tax would otherwise have been paid" (whether or not) "to help raise the standards of our schools, hospitals and other public services". And as a highly educated, well-travelled 76 year-old, I don't need to be "fed by rising populism". In fact, I'm less than impressed by your use of the term as a form of exculpation. If the populace is opposed to this behaviour, then a democracy ought to seek to have it to the nearest degree annihilated. What the populace would want (whether they knew of the parable or not), for both these lawyers and their clients, would be that they found themselves swiftly cast down in life to the situation from which they prayed to Lazarus in death. Don't use the excuse that they are just 'fulfilling their professional duty by doing their best for their clients', without any ill-will for those thereby disadvantaged. They are under no compulsion to work for such clients. The only 'cab rank' duty they ought to sign up to should be one to ensure that no-one can go unrepresented at a criminal trial.
If lawyers really want a high-profile campaign to earn them 'popular' approval, they - including the judiciary - should try an unceasing outcry to restore Legal Aid to its greatest height, and give minors the unquestioned right to representation in their own right, rather than through some adult, possibly with (hidden) conflicts of interest.