So what is this thing?
I am a lawyer (I'll leave it at that for the time being even though that is a little ironic, given the nature of this blog). Part of my daily work is dealing with professional regulation, and lawyers' ethics. I take a keen interest in the way legal systems have developed different cultures in which lawyers have obligations that go significantly over and beyond those obligations which mortals have. It is, for example, a sustained source of wonderment to me how barristers have developed methodologies that help them ensure the court has as much information as it needs, whilst also not undermining (or at least not openly undermining) their clients (think "I am instructed to say", or "I don't think I can take that point any further, my Lady"). Resolving conflicts of interests is another one, and across all of them, the idea that the regulated lawyer must act in a way which facilitates the administration of justice - even if, sometimes, at the expense of the lay client.
There are, of course, very good reasons for this. If lawyers could do as they please and actually live out the cliché of the lying opportunist who dupes the court and the opposition into doing his bidding, trust in the legal system would erode. This would inevitably lead to a breakdown in societal relations. Lawyers are therefore sometimes officers of the court, but always officers of society as a whole.
It follows that lawyers spend long years training, and being inculcated with the values that enable intuitive responses to complex ethical dilemmas. Training lawyers is no trivial undertaking, and it is therefore important that it is done properly, and that trust in the legal system is put front and centre by protagonists from the different regulated branches of the profession.
It is for this reason that I am particularly interested in situations where this goes wrong, and in particular in situations where individuals are more interested in presenting as a lawyer, than in embodying the values I have briefly outlined above. This applies, first and foremost, to individuals who are pretending to be lawyers, or a type of lawyer that they are not. This is dangerous and problematic for a number of obvious reasons. It is also an issue where individuals who may actually be qualified lawyers of one kind or another, but have very limited interest in the values that should be part and parcel of that. The purpose of this blog is to explore cases in which individuals are pretending to be something they are not, to the detriment of trust in the legal system as a whole, and to consumers of legal services individually.
The first time this kind of thing gave me piloerection was the extraordinary case of Alan Blacker. I was one of the first commentators, and later investigators, of the fantasy world of the fake Lord who was rebuked by a Crown Court judge for wearing ribbons on his gown (and that wasn't the worst of what would be uncovered about this fantasist). I contributed significantly to an online community called LawBytes at the time, but subsequently actual life took over and I simply did not have time to follow this hobby in any meaningful way.
I am now hoping to do what I have been thinking about for a while and start a loose and informal collection of stories and reports about fantasy lawyers here.
Do get in touch if you want to tip me off: snitches.get.stitches@roguelawyer.org