Declaration of independence

In-house solicitors were last week invited to get involved in the next phase of the Law Society’s ethical practice project. As part of a professional ethics programme announced last year, Chancery Lane has been working with Leeds University to create a new resource to support in-house solicitors. The form that this resource will take is not yet clear. So what more do in-house lawyers need?

Draft guidance published by the SRA in March covered pressing issues such as remaining independent when under pressure from an employer. This came after the regulator was criticised by GCs for allegedly ‘understating the severity’ of the risks faced by the 34,500 solicitors who work in-house.

Work continues on fine-tuning the guidance. New reiterations are in the pipeline. The SRA also has a ‘hot-topic’ page on its website, which includes the opportunity for those wanting to help shape its thinking to join a virtual reference group.

The Post Office Inquiry has given us an excruciating insight into the dysfunction that can arise when corporate bigwigs overlook (by accident or design) their in-house lawyers’ professional obligations. Who can forget this gobsmacking statement by ex-CEO Paula Vennells on GC Susan Crichton: ‘[She] was possibly more loyal to her professional conduct requirements and put her integrity as a lawyer above the interests of the business.’

Importantly, the SRA is hamstrung by its remit. It is powerless to sanction any employer which chooses to disregard those requirements in the cause of profit or reputation management.

One proposal to address this deficiency is a discrete charter or code for in-house counsel, for adoption by ethical employers.

There are exemplars. One is the ‘good governance’ code of practice for monitoring officers to ensure local authorities behave lawfully.

Another, suggested by former group GC Bruce Manford in a recent letter to the Gazette, is the charter for internal auditors. This explains ‘the way independence is established and maintained, and the requirement to confirm to the board at least annually the organisational independence of internal audit’.

An avenue worth exploring? Perhaps. It is certainly well past time for the UK’s corporate governance framework to take account of the conflicted predicament of in-housers.