Lawyers Ethics and the Post Office Scandal

My speech to the Westminster Legal Policy Forum rehearses the main concerns about lawyer involvement spanning over 20 years and reaching to the present day

The Post Office scandal is shocking. Hundreds falsely convicted; thousands stripped of cash and livelihoods; reputations have been ruined, and families busted apart. Several have killed themselves through shame or depression. Others struggle in enormous pain.

Lawyers are at the heart of it. But as egregious as the story is lesson number one from the scandal is that the constituent parts are present in many lawyers’ mistakes I write about on lawyerwatch.

My central point is that lawyers are responsible for, not alone but sometimes leading, the grotesque abuse of law that constitutes the Post Office scandal.

Their responsibility spans years. It spans private practice and in-house practice. It takes in elite lawyers and junior lawyers. Solicitors and barristers. It even ensnares at least one senior former judge.

I want to speak as plainly as I can about what I see as having gone wrong.