IBA 2023: 'Ethical gatekeepers' rule for lawyers to consider wider social consequences sent back for further consideration

Proposals to require lawyers to consider the wider social implications of acting for clients - even when no law is broken - have been parked by the world's largest voluntary association of lawyers. 

A session of the International Bar Association's annual conference in Paris yesterday heard bar leaders line up to attack the proposed amendment to Principle 5 of the IBA's International Principles on Conduct for the Legal Profession, which opens with the words: 'A lawyer shall treat client interests as paramount.' In response to attacks on lawyers in areas ranging from abusive litigation to tax avoidance to climate change, it adds a note questioning 'whether a lawyer’s ethical behaviour should be shaped purely by conformity to the interests of their client... without proper attention being paid to their other professional responsibilities'.

The proposed amendment emerged from an IBA project to examine the role of lawyers as 'ethical gatekeepers within wider society'. 

Setting out, in a personal capacity, the need for change, Law Society council member and Gazette columnist Jonathan Goldsmith called attention to attacks on the profession by politicians and activists. 'This is an international problem and if we don't deal with it ourselves, others will do it for us,' he warned, citing moves by the European as well as the UK parliament to clamp down on practices such as 'SLAPP' lawsuits. 

He was opposed by Patrick Dillen of the Brussels bar, who described the proposed amendment as vague and open to abuse. 'If we had a rule which said "you are not taking this case because of a vague social norm", it would be very dangerous,' he said. 'It should be for the individual lawyer and their conscience.'

Several speakers raised the potential clash with the 'cab rank' rule in jurisdictions with a split profession. Speaking from the floor, England and Wales bar chief Nick Vineall KC said he accepted that solicitors had a right to refuse to act for clients - 'the real question is whether they have a duty.' He warned of the danger of imposing additional obligations 'when it is quite unclear what these obligations are'.

The event heard that the proposed amendment would not go before the IBA's Council meeting today as planned but will go back to the policy committee for further consideration.

This article is now closed for comment.