The Law Society has a problem

I blogged in March about an outrageous decision by a Law Society Standards Committee decision which fined Stephen Franks and Franks Ogilvy for the sin of “being lawyers”. I wrote:

The Legal Complaints Review Officer overturned the decision, noting:

The very purpose of a lawyer or firm sending a letter on behalf of a client is, in many if not most instances, to endeavour to lend weight to whatever concern, position or purpose the client seeks to express or advance. That is what lawyers do. This is why a client comes to its lawyer and says, “we need a lawyer’s letter about this”. This cannot conceivably be improper in principle.

This was a massive slap down. But nothing will stop some members of the Law Society who seem determined to take out anyone whose clients have the wrong politics. And once again they have been slapped down by a Legal Complaints Review Officer:

I disagree with the Committee’s reasoning and conclusions for essentially the same or similar reasons as I disagreed with the same standards committee’s reasoning and conclusions on similar issues in the Franks decision, albeit that there are differences. In Franks, the Committee’s adverse conduct finding was one of breach of r 2.3 of the Rules relating to use of a legal process for an improper purpose. Here, the finding is one of disrespect and discourteousness in breach of r 10.1 of the Rules.

I had never heard of an LCRO before the Franks decision. I am now very glad they exist!

Similarly, it is not for the Committee to second-guess how the applicant went about supporting her client in the pursuit of its cause, again provided that the means of doing so were lawful. In general terms, I do not consider that r 10.1 is intended to operate as a mechanism for attempting to constrain a lawyer’s professional involvement on behalf of a client in public discourse on any issue of arguable public interest.

Let lawyers be lawyers!