At present, the regulation of solicitors takes place under the Solicitors Acts 1954-2008. Barristers are not regulated by similar legislation but under the aegis of the Bar Council. Under Section 2 of the Code of Conduct for the Bar a barrister has an overriding duty to the court to ensure in the public interest that the proper and efficient administration of justice is achieved and he/she must assist the court in the administration of justice and must not deceive or knowingly mislead the court.
Under Section 5 of the Guide to Professional Conduct of Solicitors, a solicitor not only acts for his client and owes a duty to do his best for that client but he also owes a duty to the court. The proper administration of justice requires that the court be able to rely upon each lawyer who appears before it or who has dealings with it. A solicitor:
(a) should promote and protect fearlessly by all proper and lawful means the client’s best interests and do so without regard to his own interest or to any consequences to himself or to any person,
(b) should keep confidential information about a client and his or her affairs and must not disclose the facts known to him regarding the client’s character or previous convictions without the client’s express consent,
(c) has an overriding duty to the court to ensure in the public interest that the proper and efficient administration of justice is achieved and should assist the court in the administration of justice and should not deceive or knowingly or recklessly mislead the court’.
Both of the professional conduct regimes are to be modernised and reformed under the Legal Services Regulation Bill 2011 which is awaiting Committee Stage. To that end, the Bill has three important levers of reform in relation to the regulation of the two legal professions and of legal costs, namely:
- a new, independent, Legal Services Regulatory Authority with responsibility for the oversight of both solicitors and barristers.
- an independent complaints system to deal with public complaints including those relating to professional misconduct. There will also be an independent Legal Practitioners’ Disciplinary Tribunal to deal with both legal professions.
- an Office of the Legal Costs Adjudicator that will assume the role of the existing Taxing-Master. The new Office, headed by a Chief Legal Costs Adjudicator, will modernise the way disputed legal costs are adjudicated and two new Taxing-Masters have already been appointed in anticipation of this reform. Determinations of costs made by the Adjudicator will be made public and the Adjudicator may also publish legal costs guidelines. Separately, the Bill sets out, for the first time in legislation, a set of Legal Costs Principles. It also imposes greater obligations on legal practitioners to disclose the actual or potential costs of legal proceedings to their clients.
