The Future of Obligations to Prospective Clients
The traditional idea that the legal representative of choice is open to anyone may be gradually disappearing. Solicitors have abandoned the idea of an obligation to promote freedom of choice of solicitor.
The Bar’s commitment to the cab rank rule has survived an attack, but will be weakened, in practical terms, by the decline of legal aid and the Criminal Bar. There now appear to be three potential routes for the principle of client selection. The professions may continue to have different lines on client selection or they may fall into line on the issue, with the idea of neutrality in client selection adopted or rejected by both.In their application to the LSB for approval of their new handbook, the BSB signalled the intention to engage the SRA in discussions on applying the cab rank rule to solicitors as well as barristers. This would, the BSB claimed, increase access to justice in the legal profession. If it were to be achieved, the BSB would consider extending the cab rank rule to its public access work.31 It seems unlikely that the Law Society will be convinced of the need for neutrality in client selection, and even less likely that it could convince solicitors that it was necessary to introduce it.
There appears to be a particularly strong case for existing differences between solicitors and barristers on the issue of client selection being preserved and strengthened. One of the best arguments for a bar of independent advocates is that they are available to equalise arms between the smallest and largest solicitors in the land. It is therefore important that independent barristers are available to all, in a way that solicitors need not be. The differentiation argument may apply less convincingly to solicitors in rural areas, where the relative lack of choice is an argument against
28 ibid, Outcome 2.3.
29 ibid, Indicative Behaviour 2.5.
30 ibid, Indicative Behaviour 2.4.
31 Amendments to the Bar Code of Conduct (n 23) at para 2.19. client selection. Nevertheless, there is a rational basis for a different approach between professions.
IV.