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Part of the solicitor's job is to find Counsel who is capable of doing the case. Surely the solicitor should have told his client in no uncertain terms that the solicitor had selected Counsel he thought best for the case and that he could not advise a change of Counsel on such grounds. If the client persisted the solicitor could have told them that they were not prepared to act where the client was unreasonably ignoring their advice. All this is part of "Client Care"; clients can have mistaken perceptions about all sorts of matters in the law and in such circumstances as this it is the solicitor's duty to drill down and find out what is going on with the client. If it turns out that the client is a racist (and that the only ground for the client not wanting a barrister who is not white and male is that he "doesn't like foreigners or non-whites" ) then the solicitor has ample grounds for ceasing to act.