Hamlyn lectures 2024
A chance to look at how the behaviours in the PO Scandal are part of a wider picture of problems with lawyers ethics…
I am very pleased to be able to announce that I have been invited by the Hamlyn Trust to give the 2024 lectures. For someone like me, it is an incredible honour (you can read more about them here and here). With the Post Office Scandal, SLAPPs, NDAs, the involvement of lawyers in climate harm, and parliamentary criticisms of lawyers building, it’s definitely a case of right time, right place.
The title for these lectures is Frail Professionalism: how ethical failure is polluting justice. The dates for the lectures are below. If you might be interested please hold the dates. The lectures are free and open to all. When bookings can be made, I will post again.
Lecture I: Rule of law or rule of lucre? Culture, philosophy, and lawyers’ ethical failure [30th October, Exeter]
Lecture II: Legality Illusions: How lawyer and commercial logics pollute institutions
[6th November, Leeds]
Lecture III: Can professionalism saves itself: a lucid morality for law and professional ethics? [13th November, UCL]
2023 ended with a raft of ethics lawyers ethics problems in high profile matters: the Post Office (with more to come this year), Michelle Mone’s libel threateners, and Harry v MGN to name but three. The lectures will look at but also beyond the Post Office Scandal to show how the problems there are not one offs but symptomatic of a system that too often loses its way and fails to take account of the human frailties that dog all of us and the institutions we work within. In a sentence: Frail ethics and weak legal systems bake in injustice – how and why? I will consider the individual and systemic causes of such frailties and why all lawyers are vulnerable. The place of individuals, firms, chambers, regulators, the courts, and clients will be examined. And I will suggest how morality and legality can be strengthened to drive a legal system better able to deliver on the claims it makes for itself.