It has been said that every human action can be put down to the avoidance of shame - shame being the lowest human experience, akin to banishment from community, family, all belonging.
What gets lawyers into a position in which they face the risk of shame may be as simple as inadvertence, or laziness, or greed. However, once in a situation, the notion of being found to be wrong, or resiling from a position or course of action, or even admitting fault, triggers the more fundamental fear of shame.
My limited experience, for example, of dealing with solicitor and accountant negligence claims when acting for insurers showed how those involved simply could not admit fault and invariably preferred to fight with their clients and others than do so.
Lawyers are only human and I do not know of a solution to that condition. All we have is the idea that "the law is not to change the heart, but to restrain the heartless". The public, I suspect, believes that it is the work of regulators to keep lawyers faithful to the principles-based rules that govern their conduct. Some regulators, on the other hand, seem to be more concerned with promulgating regulations and steering clear of enforcement than doing the hard work of holding the regulated to account.
When you have little or no idea of the ins and out of your operating environment and how it operates then operating ethically is extremely difficult. not least because arguably the operationg environment shapes and drives ethical behaviour. The world we live in is benig changed, fundamentally by the kind of massive, comprehensive, communication network there is now made more complicated by the idea that it is a world wide phenomenum that did not exist when Horizon was concieved and we are still trying to deal with now.
Arguably, Horizon is a precursor to much that bedevils us now as we try to figure out how to deal with it all.
Your team web site being a case in point. Albeit something relatively (he writes casually), in its privacy notices, its wording and tone is fresh out of the Google assurances playbook. But, if people learn to look, then what is written is betrayed as an exercise in unfuonded optimism if folk do the kind of detailed functional checking that should be done. Just the way it is I am afraid.
Unless and until folk generaly realise and understand that ALL software, of any kind (even the automated stuff being touted as the next silver bullet) has its origins in the plans and actions of Mk1 Human beings, with all their fancies and foibles, things like Horizon will continue to happen.
in respect of the legal profession in particular, I came across the word "lawfare" recently, in a specific context but nevertheless a term that is applicable elsewhere as far as I am concerned, which is about the interpretation of statute to suite a purpose, increasingly a political purpose, but in the case of Horizon one of covering backsides, which depends for its success on ammoral interpretation of what is written down as statute, that most of us have no idea how to do. That is particularly true of career politicians.
What Horizon and its inquiry has done is to expose what is going on. And as I tihnk you are trying to illustrate, your profession in particular, has a lot of soul searching to do. It is in danger of being seen as morally corrupt, on the grand scale. I wonder if there is going to be a correction? Somehow I doubt it. The test will be post Inquiry disciplining of those we have seen doing little more than abuse the system.
It has been said that every human action can be put down to the avoidance of shame - shame being the lowest human experience, akin to banishment from community, family, all belonging.
What gets lawyers into a position in which they face the risk of shame may be as simple as inadvertence, or laziness, or greed. However, once in a situation, the notion of being found to be wrong, or resiling from a position or course of action, or even admitting fault, triggers the more fundamental fear of shame.
My limited experience, for example, of dealing with solicitor and accountant negligence claims when acting for insurers showed how those involved simply could not admit fault and invariably preferred to fight with their clients and others than do so.
Lawyers are only human and I do not know of a solution to that condition. All we have is the idea that "the law is not to change the heart, but to restrain the heartless". The public, I suspect, believes that it is the work of regulators to keep lawyers faithful to the principles-based rules that govern their conduct. Some regulators, on the other hand, seem to be more concerned with promulgating regulations and steering clear of enforcement than doing the hard work of holding the regulated to account.
👏👏👏👏
Very powerful lecture, Thank you, I hope it leads to the changes you seek.
When you have little or no idea of the ins and out of your operating environment and how it operates then operating ethically is extremely difficult. not least because arguably the operationg environment shapes and drives ethical behaviour. The world we live in is benig changed, fundamentally by the kind of massive, comprehensive, communication network there is now made more complicated by the idea that it is a world wide phenomenum that did not exist when Horizon was concieved and we are still trying to deal with now.
Arguably, Horizon is a precursor to much that bedevils us now as we try to figure out how to deal with it all.
Your team web site being a case in point. Albeit something relatively (he writes casually), in its privacy notices, its wording and tone is fresh out of the Google assurances playbook. But, if people learn to look, then what is written is betrayed as an exercise in unfuonded optimism if folk do the kind of detailed functional checking that should be done. Just the way it is I am afraid.
Unless and until folk generaly realise and understand that ALL software, of any kind (even the automated stuff being touted as the next silver bullet) has its origins in the plans and actions of Mk1 Human beings, with all their fancies and foibles, things like Horizon will continue to happen.
in respect of the legal profession in particular, I came across the word "lawfare" recently, in a specific context but nevertheless a term that is applicable elsewhere as far as I am concerned, which is about the interpretation of statute to suite a purpose, increasingly a political purpose, but in the case of Horizon one of covering backsides, which depends for its success on ammoral interpretation of what is written down as statute, that most of us have no idea how to do. That is particularly true of career politicians.
What Horizon and its inquiry has done is to expose what is going on. And as I tihnk you are trying to illustrate, your profession in particular, has a lot of soul searching to do. It is in danger of being seen as morally corrupt, on the grand scale. I wonder if there is going to be a correction? Somehow I doubt it. The test will be post Inquiry disciplining of those we have seen doing little more than abuse the system.