The Attic

The Attic: Leadership and ethics in volatile times

We need to talk about building trust

“Leadership”, strategist Peter Drucker said, “is an achievement of trust” on which collaboration and teams are built. In a new BBC Radio 4 series, scientist Rachel Botsman sets about to trace the history of trust and the way it changed and shaped our lives. She explores how we bank and buy goods and services, learn, travel, and – most importantly – find and consume information. Legal information is now easily available online and many people self-help in legal matters as they cannot afford to access legal support. Early findings in research from the Legal Services Board (LSB), in partnership with the Law Society of England and Wales, showed that 36% of consumers have an unmet legal need (as high as 50% for those with a disability). Of those, 43% had “low legal confidence”. ? Trust in the legal profession – and in house lawyers in particular – has come under close scrutiny in the light of the Post Office Horizon miscarriage of justice. One of the convicted sub-postmasters, Lee Castleton, shared his experience of the legal system as a litigant in person during the Reshaping the Legal ?Services conference. His was a moving presentation and set the scene really well for what is quickly emerging as a key theme for the legal profession – ethics, independence and competency.?

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“I just wish more lawyers could see that person at the end of the line”, Lee said.

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Prof Richard Moorhead listed “some of the things that have gone wrong, I think, in the post office scandal. They involve, in summary, putting the client's interests first before the interests of justice, before integrity, before independence, and sometimes, I'm sorry to say, before honesty. Using the law and confidentiality, in particular, as a tool to take advantage of relatively powerless individuals”.

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What makes a competent in-house lawyer??

The Solicitors Regulatory Authority (SRA) in house lawyers’ day ?tackled the issue of competency and ongoing development. “Trust”, said author Stephen R Covey, is a function of two things: character and competence. Character includes your integrity, your motive and your intent with people. Competence includes your capabilities, your skills, and your track record. Both are vital.”

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How to balance independence as a regulated professional with the business demands is something most of those I spoke to during the day worried about. ?“The clue is in the name, in house solicitor, you are literally living in your client's house.”, one of the panellists said, explaining the challenge of fine-tuning legal advice for the audience it is targeted at internally to ensure adoption and compliance. “In terms of content, our focus really should be both on the legal knowledge but also really good business knowledge and the way that our services are delivered. And, communications is a massive skill”. Even without budget and without time – a legal team’s training strategy cannot be ‘to do nothing’. Some of the tips they gave to create “a training strategy around free provision is important” involved: watching free webinars, go to barrister chambers’ briefings, read bulletins on your specialist area from the Law Society, peer-to-peer learning. Leaders have to role model these behaviours to forge a team that values development and growth.

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What makes an inclusive leader?

The “Take The Stand - Inclusive Leadership" interviews I have been working on for a couple of months are now being shared publicly – to start us off, you can watch Banke Odunaike's full interview here. Banke has recently swapped the head of legal hat with a head of culture hat at CBRE.

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