Why should we value our lawyers, the lady chief justice of England and Wales asked rhetorically last night. Baroness Carr of Walton-on-the-Hill was delivering the annual Sir Henry Brooke lecture at the invitation of the British and Irish Legal Information Institute, a cash-strapped charity better known as Bailii to the countless people who benefit from its free law reports.
Carr’s answer was that lawyers provide significant value to society, covering
the rule of law and economic growth, effective legal advice, the prevention and resolution of disputes, the provision of the judiciary of the future — one that reflects the breadth of society — underpinned by sound legal education, professional ethics and effective regulation.
In 2023, the legal sector contributed an estimated £37 billion to the economy, while generating a trade surplus of £7.6 billion. But, said Carr, the value of lawyers didn’t just come from their role in dispute resolution:
It is well-known and generally accepted that societies that are committed to the rule of law are likely to be more economically successful than those that are not, or those that have weaker commitments to it than others.
And the rule of law did not mean rule by lawyers:
A robust legal profession and an equally robust independent judiciary is a necessary component of the rule of law, and hence of intrinsic value to any successful society.
But it is not a necessary and sufficient condition. It is one part of an overarching whole that goes to make up a healthy, open and publicly accountable democracy.
Without, however, access to expert legal advice and, where necessary, representation, it simply is not possible to secure the rule of law effectively.
In Carr’s view, effective legal advice depended, in turn, on effective legal education and training. It also depended on the availability of legal aid. The law had a preventative function: early advice could prevent disputes developing and escalating. The legal profession could do more, she thought, to develop innovative and effective access to preventative legal advice.
Judges were lawyers once
Turning to the role that lawyers play in the judiciary of the future, Carr argued that the legal profession must be robust in its independence of government, parliament and the judiciary if it was to carry out what she regarded as its constitutional function:
If tomorrow’s judges are to continue to demonstrate the robust independence of mind in the service of justice that has historical been the case and remains so today, it is essential that today’s lawyers continue to develop that independence of mind in their practices.
These days, however, expertise in the law, independence of mind, good character and robust judgment were not enough:
Today’s judiciary needs to demonstrate effective management skills. It needs to be able to engage in and lead the effective administration of the courts…
As our courts continue to digitise — and particularly given the increasing importance artificial intelligence will have in the management and administration of justice, as well as its potential role in assisting judges to carry out their role — it is essential that all judges are as familiar with it as they are with the administrative, case management, and adjudicative functions.
That might mean revisiting the nature of legal education:
It is, for instance, standard practice now for universities to provide four-year law degrees with one of these years spent studying law in a university in another country. The benefits are obvious.
Might we want to adapt that model so that one of the four years is dedicated to studying computer science, AI, psychology, finance and so on? Some universities are already doing so.
Might it be an approach that should be generalised across legal education so that all new entrants to the profession are fully equipped in these areas for developing their practices in the 21st century? And from there, for those who want to do so, to enter the judiciary in the course of their careers.
Regulating the lawyers
Finally, the lady chief justice turned to the question of professional regulation:
To ensure that the profession continues to be highly valued, to minimise the risk of unethical conduct that calls into question its value, it is of fundamental importance that the right regulatory structures are in place and the right approach to the teaching and maintenance of professional ethics is in place.
We can all think of high-profile collapses of law firms and subsequent regulatory investigations, she said. The Legal Service Board had recently reported examples of unethical conduct.
Whether there should be review of legal regulation, as Sir Bob Neill had suggested when he chaired the Commons justice committee, was clearly a matter for the government. But the chief justice offered ministers food for thought:
In thinking about whether to review, and if so what might be the scope of such a review, several points might beneficially be explored.
First, what does the long view tell us? Is there evidence that professional and ethical standards have declined overall in the last twenty years, or at least since the introduction of the post-Legal Services Act 2007 regulatory structure?
Secondly, if there is such evidence, is the regulatory structure the — or a —significant cause of that decline? It is argued outside the legal environment that poor behaviour is a symptom of poor environments. Is that the case here?
Thirdly, if the regulatory structure is not the, or a, significant cause, what then are the causes and how can the challenge they create be met effectively?
That too may lead to a conclusion that regulatory reform is needed. It may also lead to the conclusion that changes need to be made to legal education so that professional ethics is not simply a part of the vocational courses but becomes an integral part of law degrees.
Carr left her questions for others to answer. But she was sure that the right regulatory structures and the right approach to the teaching and maintenance of professional ethics were needed to ensure that the legal profession continued to be highly valued.
And she left her audience in no doubt that this was a challenge that could be met.