Hamlyn Lectures 2024: Frail Professionalism

Speaker

• Richard Moorhead - Professor of Law and Professional Ethics, University of Exeter 

Chair

• The Rt Hon. the Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom

About the event

This lecture will suggest routes to re-invigorating lawyers’ ethics. It will suggest reframing professional thinking so that lucid, practical, meaningful instantiations of integrity and independence match client loyalty. It will ask, does good judgment (and indeed the law) demand a place for morality in professional decision-making? And if so, what kind of morality? And how should uncertainty and risk be managed proportionately and without paternalism? An agenda for professional rule changes, regulatory practice, education, the courts, professional privilege and corporate governance is suggested by the orthodoxies the Post Office Scandal reveals; its victims demand our attention, and this lecture will propose ideas for action.

About the Speaker: 

Richard Moorhead is a legal scholar focused on lawyers' ethics, regulation, courts, and access to justice. He collaborates with economists, psychologists, judges, and regulators. He blogs at Lawyerwatch, with a focus on the Post Office Scandal, and regularly appears in the media.

His research includes lawyers' ethics, litigants in person, legal aid quality, and reform. He has advised Select Committees and served on the Ministry of Justice’s Data Evidence and Science Board and also sits on the Horizon Compensation Advisory Board. 

About the Chair: 

James Arbuthnot, Baron Arbuthnot of Edrom, PC was Member of Parliament (MP) from 1987 to 2015 and is now a life peer. He has been a leading campaigner on the Post Office Scandal for many years and sits on the Horizon Compensation Advisory Board. 

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