Frail Lawyers and Their Fearless Logics: What Drives Ethical Error?
Presenter: Professor Richard Moorhead, University of Exeter
Chair: Mr Graham Gibson KC
Commentator: Mr Richard Douglas KC
Registration: 5 - 5.15pm
Seminar: 5.15 - 6.45pm
Drinks: 6.45 - 7.15pm
About the seminar
As Robodebt illustrates, lawyers’ ethics are important. This paper will show why it is not just bad apples or overweening clients that mean all lawyers are at risk of ethical blunders. Traditional notions of lawyers’ ethics - ideas such as fearlessness, zeal and Cab Rank neutrality - will be examined, as will the human frailties that all humans, even – perhaps especially – lawyers face. We will consider how such ideas can drive lawyers towards disaster. Examples will be taken from the United Kingdom Post Office scandal, but also elsewhere. Professor Moorhead will suggest that traditional notions of ethics are flawed; that rather than protecting the rule of law, they render it vulnerable.
About Current Legal Issues Seminar Series
Launched in 2009, Current Legal Issues is a high profile series of seminars featuring leading national and international legal scholars, practitioners and members of the judiciary.
The series is a collaboration between UQ Law, the Bar Association of Queensland, the Queensland University of Technology Faculty of Law and the Supreme Court of Queensland Library. It seeks to bring together leading scholars, practitioners and members of the Judiciary in Queensland and from abroad, with a view to:
- providing a forum for the critical analysis and discussion of current legal issues
- bringing to bear upon those issues the different perspectives offered by leading academics, legal professionals and the Judiciary
- forging stronger links between academic and practising lawyers in Queensland.
Each seminar will comprise a Chair, Speaker, and Commentator. The Chair will introduce the Speaker and Commentator. A paper will then be presented by a leading practitioner or academic lawyer, and will be subject to a brief, expert commentary. There will then be an opportunity for members of the floor to ask questions and engage in further discussion. The paper and a short profile of each participant will be available in advance on this website to assist in facilitating full discussion.
Venue
415 George Street, Brisbane
