Topics / Crime, policing and justice
Should lawyers be expected to represent any client, however abhorrent the accusation or the client?
This question asks what duties individual lawyers in the UK should have when choosing clients: whether they should accept any case within their competence regardless of the client or the accusation, may decline on grounds of conscience if others are available, or should be open to moral criticism for the work they choose. All three positions accept that every defendant is entitled to a defence; they disagree about how that entitlement should shape the obligations and accountability of individual lawyers.
Positions
- Yes, keep and respect the cab-rank rule: Barristers should accept any case within their competence at a proper fee, whatever they think of the client or the accusation. If lawyers choose clients by popularity, the most hated people, who are most at risk of an unfair hearing, will struggle to find skilled representation.
- Freedom of conscience, as long as someone else is available: Lawyers are people with moral convictions and should be free to decline cases that violate them, provided that no one is left without competent representation as a result.
- Lawyers carry moral responsibility for the work they choose: A lawyer's choice of work is a moral choice, especially outside criminal defence. Helping the powerful silence critics with strategic lawsuits, or advancing the interests of repressive governments or polluting industries, is a choice that is fair to criticise, while every defendant's right to a defence remains intact.