{"id":1889,"date":"2026-10-01T15:31:46","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T14:31:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/centre-for-the-study-of-corruption\/?p=1889"},"modified":"2026-10-01T15:32:17","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T14:32:17","slug":"the-moral-compass-of-the-legal-profession","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/centre-for-the-study-of-corruption\/2026\/10\/01\/the-moral-compass-of-the-legal-profession\/","title":{"rendered":"The moral compass of the legal profession"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Source: Pexels<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This blog reproduces a Keynote address given by Guy Beringer<\/strong> KC (Hon) to the <\/em>International Conference of Legal Regulators<\/em><\/a> in London on 28th<\/sup> September 2026.  Beringer is a distinguished international lawyer, often described as a \u2018City grandee\u2019, who chaired the multistakeholder <\/em>Taskforce on Business Ethics and the Legal Profession<\/em><\/a> which was hosted by the Institute for Business Ethics and collaborated with the Centre for the Study of Corruption.  This resulted in a paper on <\/em>\u2018Competing rights, colliding ethics\u2019<\/em><\/a> jointly written by Beringer with CSC faculty members Robert Barrington and Georgia Garrod, published in the journal Legal Ethics.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018The absence of illegality has displaced ethical decision taking. Behaviour has accordingly become process driven rather than moral\u2026we have a world in which you can tick the boxes and forget the big picture.\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I qualified as a solicitor in 1980, almost half a century ago. I worked for the then Senior Partner of the firm. It was a time of great change in the City with firms becoming larger, with competition amongst firms becoming significantly more aggressive and with American banks disrupting the unwritten rules of the City. The times were certainly changing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I recall the Senior Partner turning to me one day a few years later as he neared his retirement from the firm and he said: \u2018Guy, I am very glad I am not starting now\u2019. I was rather baffled by this remark as I thought it was a time of great opportunity and excitement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Exactly 20 years later, at the turn of the century, I became Senior Partner of the firm. I loved the role and it was a great privilege, but as I approached the time in 2008 when I stepped down, I finally came to understand what he had meant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I mention this for two reasons which are relevant today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first reason is that the profession is facing massive change. AI is a phenomenal change and its pace is extraordinary. For someone of my generation, it would be a daunting task to start out now. It is dramatically changing the delivery of legal services. It is also dramatically changing the structure of the profession which delivers those services and the careers of those within it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second reason for mentioning the story is that this is not new. Each generation in my working lifetime has seen dramatic changes. Plus ca change. The internationalisation of the law has changed it dramatically. The corporatisation of legal services has changed it dramatically. The competition for clients and for new recruits has changed dramatically. Access to justice has changed dramatically although, whilst all the other measures I have mentioned have expanded, it has paradoxically contracted. So, each generation has thought itself unique because of the challenges it has faced whilst, in reality, this is just a rite of passage. We are all creatures of our own time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wanted to reflect today on some of the enduring themes which remain with us through all these great upheavals as I think the most important ones may have been obscured or even lost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The starting point is the nature of the legal profession. It is a public profession in that it plays a role in public life and it receives privileges and benefits in return for playing that role. The overarching regulatory requirements for the profession reflect its role as a public profession as they give primacy to the public interest and they place a premium on the maintenance of public trust in both the profession and the justice system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These are large and complex issues. The public interest is a complex and contested idea and is often a matter of opinion rather than an objectively discernible goal. Yet it is at the heart of what a public profession is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I would suggest that the growth of regulation and rules has, over the past 50 years, led to a lazy and self interested substitution of the absence of illegality as a goal in place of pursuit of the public interest. The profession has effectively outsourced its soul to its regulators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is not just a feature of the legal profession. It has happened right across the business world. It is much easier for any organisation to demand to be told what it can not do rather than to have to work out for itself what might best serve the public interest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The proliferation of regulation has, as a result, had two unintended consequences. First, it has ensured that the absence of illegality has displaced ethical decision taking. Behaviour has accordingly become process driven rather than moral.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second consequence is that risk has become compartmentalised. It has been divided into areas on which specialists advise. This has relieved those with responsibility for running organisations of the burden of overall accountability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Putting these two consequences into a vernacular shorthand, we have a world in which you can tick the boxes and forget the big picture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I appreciate that telling a conference of regulators that regulation has led to an amoral business environment may not be welcome but let me return to my original story. Each generation of the legal profession has believed that it faces challenges of unprecedented complexity. It has constructed new rules to deal with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the profession has forgotten the fundamental point that it must serve the public interest. It must discern the public interest for itself. It cannot expect a regulator to translate the public interest into a set of rules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What does this mean in practice?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you take the issue of client selection in civil matters, the commercial end of the profession needs to work out how it exercises its complete freedom to select its own clients and to ensure the public understands that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you take the issue of access to justice, the profession needs to work out how we have arrived at a position where half the population cannot afford legal advice. The profession does not have to fix the problem but it might be wise to have a rather more sophisticated answer than increased government spending.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you take the issue of money laundering, the profession needs to work out how to counter charges of enabling. It is judgment which is required and not the mere absence of illegality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you take the issue of maintaining public confidence in the legal profession and the justice system- a core duty of the legal profession- you might ask when was the last time this appeared on the agenda of any commercial law firm. You will probably not get an answer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are many other issues that you will debate over the coming days. My theme is that the profession needs to recognise that you, the regulators, can do its regulation but you cannot do its thinking. In the end, a profession will get the regulation it deserves. If it does not do its own thinking, it cannot complain if external forces do it instead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This thinking should begin with the question: \u2018What is a public profession?\u2019 An understanding of the nature and duties of a public profession will give the context for ethical behaviour. Ethics cannot be taught in a vacuum. Regulators should urge forms to do this sort of thinking openly and collectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let me conclude by saying that the profession now has two starkly differing wings. There are very successful large commercial multi national corporations and  much smaller struggling SMEs. There is clearly a large middle ground but the differences between these two wings is stark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The larger firms derive huge wealth from their internationalisation but they cannot internationalise the public interest. It remains a national issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The larger firms benefit significantly from the barriers to entry which the national regulatory structure of the law provides even though they will believe that they have themselves been the authors of their success. There is, therefore, a clear commercial interest for the profession in ensuring that these barriers to entry (which are of great commercial value to larger firms) are maintained. This in turn requires that  the public interest is served. It also requires that public confidence in the profession is maintained. If the public loses confidence in the profession, it may choose to remove the privileges that the profession enjoys.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The legal profession cannot afford to be viewed as a modern version of the guild system which has ceased to provide the benefits which society values. The fundamental point here is the one made by Lord Bingham in 1993: \u2018The reputation of the profession is more important than the fortunes of any individual member. Membership of a profession brings many benefits but that is a part of the price\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This remains true today yet the reputation of the profession as a whole does not seem to interest larger law firms whose attention is firmly fixed on their own individual reputations. Losing the status of public profession does not seem to feature on anyone\u2019s risk register. It should do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The greatest service a regulator can provide is to draw this fact to the attention of the profession. You might even suggest that large law firms spend less time looking in the rule book and more time looking in the mirror. Exciting times indeed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This blog reproduces a Keynote address given by Guy Beringer KC (Hon) to the International Conference of Legal Regulators in London on 28th September 2026.  Beringer is a distinguished international lawyer, often described as a \u2018City grandee\u2019, who chaired the…<\/span><\/p>\n

Read more ›<\/a><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[123513],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/centre-for-the-study-of-corruption\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1889"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/centre-for-the-study-of-corruption\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/centre-for-the-study-of-corruption\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/centre-for-the-study-of-corruption\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/centre-for-the-study-of-corruption\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1889"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/centre-for-the-study-of-corruption\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1889\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1892,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/centre-for-the-study-of-corruption\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1889\/revisions\/1892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/centre-for-the-study-of-corruption\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/centre-for-the-study-of-corruption\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/centre-for-the-study-of-corruption\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}