The cab-rank rule remains a bulwark of the rule of law, yet lawyers are increasingly judged by their clients’ causes. Writing in NLJ this week, Ian McDougall, president of the LexisNexis Rule of Law Foundation, warns that conflating representation with endorsement is a ‘clear and present danger’
Social media campaigns and political polarisation risk turning advocacy into moral alignment. Everyone deserves representation, he argues, even the ‘unpopular defendants’ and controversial causes that test public sentiment.
But lawyers must also maintain boundaries between professional detachment and personal activism. The system depends on counsel acting ‘without fear of vilification’, and on a profession that distinguishes clearly between advocacy and campaigning.
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