Legal profession independence threatened

Spending cuts, career politicians, media excess and consumerism are all combining to threaten the independence of the legal profession, says Bar chairman Tim Dutton QC.

Addressing the Criminal Bar Association conference in York, Dutton said a shift in mindsets and attitudes was affecting the Bar’s ability as an independent profession to discharge its duties vigorously and independently. He said: “[One] influence is not just a desire to control expenditure—laudable in itself for us as taxpayers—but we have seen in recent years the use of expenditure controls to encroach upon our professional independence and judgment. “A combination of media excess and consumerism is creating an environment in which politicians and others attack the professions, and ours in particular. The irony is that those who launch attacks upon the profession are also the people who use it the most.”

He says that from an increasingly young age our “political class” is drawn from people who see politics as their career almost from university. “The fact that politics is now the ‘profession’ which politicians pursue means that some are unable from personal experience or adherence to professional codes and training to understand the significance within society of professions such as ours, the essential requirement that each of the liberal professions must remain independent, strong, and free to exercise professional judgments in the best interests of those for whom they act.”