WESTERN CIRCUIT PRACTICE MANAGEMENT COURSE

ETHICS QUESTIONS

1.    During your first six, you are being paid to do a noting brief in a criminal trial. It becomes clear that you know one of the witnesses. 

What do you do?

Would it make any difference if you are not being paid and you are simply watching the case?

2.    During your second six months, you advise the Defendant, in conference, that she has no defence to the Claimant’s claim for the possession of the premises where she is residing.  The Defendant tells you that she understands that but believes if she hangs on long enough then the Claimant will ‘make it worth our while to go’.  She instructs you to draft a defence to hold up the case for as long as possible. 

What is your response?

3.    You are preparing for a conference with your Instructing Solicitor and 18 year old client in a fast track trial (road traffic collision).  The conference is due to start in 1 hour.  Within the instructions, your solicitor has told you that the client’s father wishes to attend, as your client has difficulty understanding matters and is very nervous about giving evidence.  The client’s father was a passenger in the car that your client was driving and has prepared a statement.

What do you do?

What would you do if the client’s father was not there at the start of the conference but arrived part-way through, stating that he was only there to support his daughter?

4.    You have achieved an SGV (“stonking great victory” – a technical term) for a client on a driving charge, avoiding disqualification. He is so pleased that he pulls out his wallet as you leave court and hands you a £50 note.

Do you accept it?

What if it is a £5 note and your client says, “Have a drink on me!”?

What if a bottle of champagne arrives in chambers the next week?

5.    The same client was quite a well-known footballer in his time. At the end of the case, a reporter who has been following the proceedings in court asks you a few questions about the case and about your client.

How do you deal with this?

6.    You are defending in a three day criminal trial, which involves staying away from home. At the end of the first day, you receive the following invitations (these are alternative scenarios, not all at once!). 

What do you do about them?

(a)    Your opponent, who is in chambers with you, suggests that you go for a drink in the local pub;

(b)    The same opponent suggests that you have dinner together in the hotel where you both are staying;

(c)    Your client wants to take you and your solicitor out for supper;

(d)    Your client offers to take you out to a club;

(e)    The judge invites you out for a drink after court;

(f)    A juror sends you a note via the usher asking if you can meet for a drink after the case has finished.

7.    In your second six months, your senior clerk tells you he’s put you forward for a brief acting for the claimant in a discrimination claim before an Employment Tribunal. It is quite a “heavy” case but you are very pleased to be asked to do it.  You speak to your solicitors before the first conference, who happen to mention that there is a silk acting on the other side (in case you think this couldn’t happen, it did happen to one of our pupils in chambers). 

Do you keep the brief?