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Ethics and Professionalism

Ethics and Professionalism

Ethics and Professionalism

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Description

OK, so as a qualified solicitor you know and abide by the SRA Code of Conduct, but compliance is more than that: it’s a team approach.

This course outlines a straightforward method to help all client-facing staff assess themselves against a professional standard.

Ideal for new members of staff in need of guidance regarding professionalism and ethics in the workplace, this session is a cost-effective solution to managing risk and will ensure that your firm’s COLP has nothing to do.

An idea refresher for long-standing employees’, the content of this course includes an understanding of what the SRA Code of Conduct means for all client facing staff drawing on practical case scenarios bringing the subject to life in a realistic, everyday way. This is the basis for a ‘zero tolerance’ approach to ethics and professionalism across the firm. If you want to achieve this, this course will show you how.

What you'll learn

On completion of this course you will:
• Have a greater appreciation of the importance of professionalism and ethics in the workplace
• Understand what is expected of solicitors and those who work within law firms regulated by the SRA, in line with the SRA Code of Conduct
• Feel confident adopting a ‘zero tolerance’ approach to ethics and professionalism within your firm

Requirements

Watch the recorded webinars and review the supporting documentation

Who is the target audience?

This course is suitable for all client facing staff, including support staff

Course Content

Recorded Webinars

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Part 1

00:27:06

Written and recorded by Mac Mackay, DAW Ltd.

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Part 2

00:38:44

before turning to the assessment part of Learning development and the srs reflective approach I think might be helpful for those of you perhaps a bit new to this or have not looked at in great depths what some of the terms mean and how we can go about assessing is giving a bit of background to that. Again the information that I provided and page 10 of the workbook is to give a little bit deeper understanding for those of you that want it. So let's have a look at what we're talking about. First of all what solicitors regulation authority. Talking about the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development. What are they saying about continuing professional development CPD And what are they saying about competency? What are these things really mean in practice? Well CPD is described here as the development of knowledge skills, personal competence needed to perform professional responsibilities. So here we've got two key elements that the first one of which of course is to perform C. P. D. Is the ability to do things. You see. It's a fact that a good knowing about equality and diversity. If you didn't actually practice it there's no value in knowing what the corporate code of ethics might be for how you your policies and so forth unless you can actually do it. So C. P. D. Is to develop the knowledge skills and competence to do something. But the key, the other key word here beyond performance is the word intentionally. In other words the decision was taken to do something as a result of some particular action has been occurring. Do I maintain the standards? Do I need to adapt the standards and so on and so forth. So there's CBD for you and clearly today is all about CBD. This program is to identify things that you can do differently as a result of the content. So what is a competency? It is developing a personal competence and that again picks up this performance word. The ability to perform, perform the role or task required by one's job to the expected standard. So again, within this definition, it's important to pick up a couple of words here. 1st 1, which is the roles and the task. You see your role maybe as a Fiona, your role may be as a supervisor and the Fiona or a supervisor of Fiona's most likely both that you are both Fiona and the supervisor. So are you able to perform your roles as a supervisor to the expected standard? Well, if you do then join us for the legal aid agency supervisors program that we've been running with data bill for a while and get engaged with that, for example. So the ability to do the job to the required standard. And it does pick up not only the transactional matter, the legal tasks you have to do, but maybe the also the management tasks that come from your role as a supervisor or as a partner or a business owner or whatever your situation is. So the competency to actually do things in an ethical framework is really fundamental to good business practice. But of course inherent within this competency is this word expected standards. So we need to know what standards are expected when one's looking at ethics and professionalism. And that's what we'll come on to. The other word being banded around by this regulation authority C. I P D and so forth. Is this phrase competency framework. And just as you can imagine, alan teach MARS has got a framework to grow something up the side of his, shed. The framework has got both width and height or depth. Okay, so that framework will set out and define what the competencies are required by individuals working in the firm at a given level of seniority. So you'd expect people if they were the client facing function. Working, reception support staff, secretaries, bookkeepers, talking to clients, you'd expect them to behave in an appropriate fashion as the minimum standard if you were. So the next level then is supervisors have different standards to look at. They're not only enforcing the standards but also monitoring it and making corrective action where it's needed while the partners at the senior level putting forward very quickly are actually defining what those standards are uh at the outset of taking the need. So then we got three very important terms we're going to be using CBD, it's your job as a professional to get involved with, that be capable, competent to do something of framework suggests that company will get more complex, more broad as you get more senior within your firm. So fairly straightforward and as I say, information is covered within the workbook. But let's look at this a little bit more detail. Let's take the breadth of competencies under the heading of ethics professionalism and judgment the core of this program. And you'll know because you've seen it on the S. R. A. Site when it's been looking at the competency framework top of the list competency, a ethics professionalism and judgment and a one says that you will act honestly and with integrity in accordance with the legal and regulatory requirements and the S. R. A handbook and code of conduct. So that's a one, A two and A three for context is about your professional judgment. So critical thinking and that sort of thing. Well, they're also important of course, that's not part of this program. And incidentally it was. We have produced a program for data law that's going down quite well on critical thinking. So a one back to the plot. A one has to do with the ethics professionalism of integrity and those behind behaviors in compliance with particular regulations. So what they have done the S. R. A. Have to define that and you'll recognize the text, a ethical issues, be understanding, see identifying relevant principles d resisting pressure to behave unethically and respecting diversity and acting fairly and inclusively. But that's as far as it goes now. Working with law firms like yours. What I've recognized is there are other things that are part and parcel of and inherent within ethical behavior. And I've got these two bullet points in red. You make effective use of management information systems and store and retrieve information in the appropriate fashion. Which of course is being able to store it appropriately and retrieve it appropriately and so forth. Making effective use of those whatever they are to deal with the next one. And that is confidentiality to deal with security to deal with data protection to do with file retention, file destruction requirements and all those of course are inherent within the work that you will be doing so what we've done here and it's perfectly reasonable to do that is to take the S. R. A's standard as a starting point and say okay that's what they're thinking about. But then I I think and you will probably agree that there's other things that need to be added to that. And you can then um debate internally whether that's the appropriate text to be using there in red. That's my suggestion. And when I've worked with firms in house to develop their own framework, their own expressions then what we've done is to adapt that subtly as well. Now you see there's nothing inherently wrong with that because what you're doing is making it you're taking the basis from the S. R. A. And you're developing it. you're making it live in the real world. And we've done this with private law firms. We've done it with the General Dental Council. We've done a lot of different organizations to really raise their uh the attention to the breadth of competencies that they expect of their people. And quite clearly the general Dental council employees solicitors. But in quite a different way to your firm if you're not in the G. D. C. And therefore the expressions used need to be adapted to match more accurately what they're doing because that produces buy in and what we can do. We'll use this and it'll come up again to explore how we can use this as a basis for evaluating performance. So hold onto that thought and I will come on to show you a very practical way of evaluating performance within the arena of ethics professionalism to act honestly and with integrity. Okay well so far so good. But of course you will remember that we were talking a little bit about progression through the firm. This would be the minimum standard you'd expect a qualified solicitor and indeed that's what the competency framework was about there the S. R. A. Called it level three and this is the point of qualification. So for contact level level one and two are for those um support staff trainee solicitors paralegals. But stage three is where you'd expect somebody to get to level three at the point of qualification level four and level five are for more senior people, senior associates junior partners, right the way through to the more senior. So if that is breath going outwards then the framework must have another dimension. So let's explore that for a moment, competency also has higher standards as one progresses now, I've not done this for equality, diversity and for ethics and professionalism. Why? Because I think that level three perfectly adequately provides the standard expected of somebody as a qualified solicitor and that is robust and complete and so forth, and you can't be more robust and complete than robust and complete. So there's no point in that particular context to look at the standards from the point of view of behaviors that compensate the practice because it's good at that level, it's good at every level rising upwards. The key thing is that we rise people up to the that we reach the qualifying standard, the qualifying standard is zero defects. The qualifying standard is that this happens day in day out all the time every time. And if it happens all the time, every time, then that is robust enough. So what do we do with complexes that move on beyond a particular standard for more senior people? I'm just using this then as an illustration, If you take the S. R. A standard C. Three, it's about working relationships and what we've done to help firms with this is to identify what degree of complexity there is as somebody progresses through their particular career and just taking sort of a one point on this, we can demonstrate what we mean by the higher standards that are achieved. You see as a trainee, you expect someone to build constructive relationships with other people within the firm, whoever they have to be working with. Um Somebody said yes, I want to come into work washed and on time and not fighting the corridors well, okay, washed or not, at least they're in on time. Um and therefore have constructive relationships with as a minimum standard. But as somebody becomes qualified, level three, an integral part of the firm establish and maintain good working communications throughout the firm. More senior associate, if that's what one would be at the next level, maybe somewhere sort of 3456 years qualified. They would start building constructive relationships with staff. But here the working relationship moves on from just getting on with people to look at effective team leadership qualities. And this is where we're seeing supervisors in practice and this is what the legal aid supervisor program with data law is aimed at doing is to help people in a more senior role with their team leadership skills. Then, as you go to a partnership level, actively assisting the leadership motivation of the department, client teens promoting the firm's ethos and values. Now this is brought in here because it's important to pick up on the point of view of ethics as a junior associate, you expect to have an absolute, you know, this is the minimum ethical standard and that doesn't change whatever level you're at, you still have the same corporate brand, corporate um, ethical standards and that needs to be maintained. But as we get onto salary partners, what the salary partner would be doing would be to actually promote the firm's ethos and values, taking what's called cabinet responsibility, if you like, for support decisions for the benefit of the brand benefit firm overall. So here we're going beyond team leadership, things that supervisor level, but actually actively promote the ethos to be a leader in that respect of those sorts of things and obviously their equity partner or director at the top of the organization, if there are indeed those structures within your firm to take full responsibility for supporting the firm's decisions. And here in terms of working relationships will be about establishing the uh, the corporate structures, establishing the corporate approach, corporate values, the ethics, the professionalism, and being a recognized leader in that respect. So here, as we can see in the last couple of slides, we've looked at the breadth of skills in any particular area and we've explored those to some degree with the ethical question. And then when we look at things like working relationships, um, not to ignore what's happening on the ethics, but they don't really appear in terms of working relationships other than the fact one keeps the standards across all those various areas that the S. R. A. Have provided in their competency statement. But here as one gets to a more senior position, then people are expected to be able to promote the firm's ethos and as an equity partner or senior actually define it as well as lead the organization inappropriate direction. So there we go. That hope puts it into context. What we need to be able to do now is to say, well, okay, if that's the context that we've got, what does it mean for the firm? Overall what I think what can be done once once established this is that having looked at the breadth of competencies at that level three qualified solicitors is then provide a clear Career path document that shows what's expected at different levels as one goes through. And here on page 11 I've got an edited highlights of one of the documents that we use when we are looking at people progressing through the firm. And here I'm showing an individual of course that becomes follicly challenged and loses the melanin color in their hair a bit like me, in other words as they progress through the firm. But of course I'm not being gender specific, then clearly ones looking at individuals developing throughout their organization. So let's have a look to see what that might look like. And hear this career path document. This is straight out of page 11 of the workbook and I've taken another area and I've looked at the five different levels trainees newly qualified to level three and then senior associate salaried equity partners, different firms will do it in different ways and this can be developed in a way to match your people because it gives people a very clear set of parameters to look at a set of standards expected and something to aspire to and develop their career changes over time, at the speed they want and to the degree that individuals want and not everybody of course wants to climb to the top of the tree as it were. And this one here, as you can see on the left hand side is about managing people, a section of it and therefore trainee develops awareness of the dynamics within each seat when you expect that talk a lot with PSC trainees and explore those sort of avenues and client care professional standards. It comes to management within the firm, then the newly qualified contributes to the internal organizational matters, understands what the financial drivers are. A Senior associate will develop a fuller understanding. So the newly qualified would be covering for example management called stage one, whereas more senior people through your six years qualified if you want a timeline will be looking at stage two for example and then leaders, the senior partners will take responsibility for operational issues, dealing with the morale, resources, budgets and so forth, recruiting people and individual some responsibility for support functions in individuals. Again I expect. The ethics of behavioral professionalism will come in there and then finally at the top level managing the firm, identifying the right staffing levels and so forth, recruitment responsibility. So this is a career path document that says okay trainings become qualified qualified people eventually move on to more senior roles and senior roles then pop up to partnership and there's a couple of levels of partnership um that are there. So if you take the five stages that the S. R. A. Have been talking about then the trainees are levels one and two. The assistance at three, the senior associate four and the salary partners at level five with varying degrees of sophistication built into that. So I hope that helps put into context the evaluation of people against a particular standard. The way in which the firm will develop particular approaches to managing the business overall and its approach to clients and so forth. And one of the things that I think is quite interesting here is to explore what that means in terms of how one converts all that into learning and development needs. I'm going to illustrate here are three very simple steps to identifying what those learning and development needs are L. And E. Learning and development needs. The first step we've had to look at is to say what is the competency standard that we're comparing ourselves with? Are we up to standard? Are we beyond that standard. So you can take the S. R. A generic standard and say well okay that's what I'm supposed to assess myself against. Good enough for me. But you may say and you may get some help from others to do that. You may say well, okay, we could adapt that to fit with our organization because we are a commercial organization. We're a private client organization. Were legal aid organization. We are an in house law firm. We are a large firm. We're a small firm. We're very things And the assistance that I mentioned maybe for independence, somebody like this are for indeed your HR or somebody more senior who's very familiar with these sort of concepts and essentially what you say. Well this is what we are, this is the bar, this is the high jump bar, the line in the sand and we are going to be able to clear that line. So that's where you set up the standard that you need to pay yourself with and then to decide or are we to that. And how do we decide that we are to that standard? Remember what I said that the SRS conferences standards is pitched at level three for newly qualified. Well, you know, are we all up to that standard as a minimum standard? If you will clearly more senior people expected to be in a higher standard. So have we got that attainment. Well that's where the reflection comes in. I'm comparing myself to that line in the sand. I'll take a run and jump, see whether I'm actually over that. What have I got? Where am I? And if I am falling short in any way then what am I going to plan to do to improve my performance to meet that standard? What have I got to do? What sorts of things will help me to improve awareness of The standard is obviously one of the first things then you would record some sort of activity or plan that you plan to do and then some sort of activity on whether you've completed it. So those sort of simple events there and from there one can see, well, okay, there's my plan, that's what I've got to do. Let me get on and do my learning and development my training and so forth. Turn to data law, see whether they've got something in their portfolio that will help me to improve. And I can identify at least a dozen options that involve learning development in the workplace. Over and above attending a training course or watching a program like this online. So those are the fairly straightforward standards at once trying to follow the steps one is trying to follow in order to achieve the output compliance of the code outcome focused regulation to achieve the outcome, the output of delivering a proper standard service that your clients have come to expect from you and everyone else within the firm. So that's what we're aiming to do. Well let's then have a look at this key bit of attainment. Where are we, how do we measure ourselves against that mythical point in the sand and the learning needs analysis and skills assessment. And this is where in a moment to one of the pages of the workbook will come in very handy for you. Remember what the S. R. A. Was saying about their competency standards committee statement was an integral part of the approach to competence for any solicitor. And I think for support staff as well in certain areas that they need to meet the competencies set out in this company statement and the ethical ones are the ones that we're focusing on here of course will be an integral part of that requirement to deliver a proper standard service in in accordance with principle five. And this of course is so important. Not just for you but for people in a support function on the phone at reception or whatever they're doing. So when it comes to assessing somebody's learning and development needs, we've got the sa raise competency statement, we've got those words established there and we can look at those and I mentioned whether or not somebody reaches a particular standard or exceeds it. So one of the problems I think that we would immediately recognize looking at this is that there would be yes you've reached it. No you haven't. But I think when it comes to competencies as we discussed the competences are about doing things and it's the degree to which one does this or the frequency particularly with which one does something. If one is unfamiliar with something you wouldn't do it very much at all. For somebody who are newly qualified you weren't sure about doing something, you might have to check from time to time. So I think that the committee statement, not only as I mentioned could be improved. And also that the way in which one evaluates is not the tick cross. Yes. No but actually a frequency statement, the degree to which somebody does this a little bit or not much. And when it comes to ethical behavior is quite obviously we want people to do these things all the time. But let's then look at a way of evaluating people and I'll take you through it. And this is where printing one of the pages of the workbook will be particularly helpful. And that's page 13 and what you have on page 13 looks a little bit like this slide and when you look at the slide it'll be a little bit different from the community statement. But I'll take you through it. This sheet. Learning needs analysis, page 13 looks at ethical principles, professionalism, judgment confidentiality in the context of ethical behavior. This is out of a one. The sa raise competency statement. I'm just reading a little bit to follow the exact words on the sheet. If I was giving this to a member of staff and I will ask you to attend this yourself. If I gave this to my Fiona peter sample, I would then ask him to read the instructions and respond accordingly. So the concierge encouraging you as an individual to reflect on the degree to which you follow the ethical principles, observing the conduct rules and so on. Now what I've done is you'll see down that list. A two H in your version is I have turned those competency statement phrases into the first person singular. In other words, instead of it being this person would do that. It's actually something that when you read it you're thinking about yourself whether you do or don't do it. So the second paragraph of the instructions, the top of the table says thinking about yourself at work because we get in the workplace mind frame, consider which means reflect on which is what the reflective approach is all about. The regularity with which we actually undertake each activity in practice, then record the frequency. So instead of it being a tick cross, we then have as you can see with the five columns to the right hand side. A scale. I never do these things. Sometimes familiar ways or I always do these things and then down at the bottom you'll see a rating getting no points for not doing something up to four for completing it all the time. And I would ask peter to look at these and consider these things. And it would be a little bit like this. So this is what he's doing. He's reading the first one. I operate with integrity individually and firm wide. Well yeah, I guess I do that all the time, recognizing ethical issues and excise effective judgments in addressing them. Well yes I do most of the time. Although once or twice I've got a couple of things that I wasn't sure about. So I did ask my my line manager, my boss, my supervisor, my one of my partners, my colleague, whoever it was to help me. Should I do this? Should I do that? And indeed I have a couple of examples where there are ethical questions where there is no right or wrong answer. So exercising judgment most of the time, but not always understand and apply ethical concepts that govern my role. Yeah, I'm okay about the ethical concepts because that's in code. I know that S. R. A. Principal's code professional conduct and sure I follow them all Absolutely too right. I do been through that and well versed on that over the years. Resist pressure to ignore commit unless we're being able to do that respect diversity fairly reporting breaches of discrimination appropriate. Well I'm pretty good. But I have to say that might have been occasions when I've seen something I thought that wasn't clever, but it's not my job to point out where somebody more senior is not behaving right. So maybe I didn't. So that's nearly always making effective use of information systems and storing retrieving. Do that comply with confidentiality, security, data protection? Oh yeah, very good at that. So what we've got to do is to look at this in the context of his behaviors at work most of the time. He's doing things all the time. So with two ticks in the nearly always column, he can then to multiply two by the score two threes are six and then he's got 123456. He's got six in the always column and 46 is 24. So on that, out of a possible score at the bottom of 32 he's actually scoring 30 out of 32. What I'd like you to do before we move any further forward is for you to do just that to stop the recording, Go through that list and give yourself an honest appraisal because only you're going to see it clearly. I'm not unless you want to fax it to me or email it or scan it and I couldn't look at it, but I don't plan to, I wouldn't expect you to have a go yourself answer it clearly with honesty and see how you get on. Okay, well I hope you have taken the time to do that because it will help embed the practice within your firm. Now at the bottom of that cheat, you are then invited. Having reflected on what you do is to make a thought an idea goal, suggestion of what you might do to improve your particular area. In other words, if there is any tick that is not in the column, always that you have some things that you think. I sometimes need a bit of help with these things. Then what are you going to do to move things where all the ticks are over on the right hand side? Now you see, I don't care what you've scored, I wouldn't want to compare your score with his score or his score with her score. What I want to prepare is where you are now and what you're going to do to improve next time you look at it because I hope you found as I did in the recording, ran through this in under five minutes to read them, think about and respond and evaluate. And I've got a benchmark for me Or Peter Sample whoever it might be. That benchmark is 30 out of 32. What's the standard? I think the standard really ought to be a lot higher than that. 32. So what can he do? Well, what he can do is to explore ethical concept, uh judgments and ethical issues. He could talk more with his supervisor, more with his colleagues. He can have a look at a couple of case studies. He could go on to the S. R. A. Site and as you know, you can have a dialogue with an ethics advisor at the S. R. A. You could go into a chatroom confidential chat room with an individual at the S. R. A. And you can have a go at that for that. For Peter might be something he would like to do to be much more clear about ethical issues and the judgments he takes on those. So he's got a number of different options to do that respecting diversity. Acting fairly reporting breaches. Well there he said he recognizes things, but maybe he should just explore what the firm's policy is. The procedure on ethical issues. Who had a conversation with compliance officer. What have you, who does that? What are those issues? Maybe there's recommendation and you may have this coming from the latter part of this program that your firm explores the diversity and acting fairly in the workplace a little bit further because maybe you haven't picked up all the 13 protected characteristics I mentioned, that's not mentioned specifically here. But you'll come back to that said, okay, those things I can improve Now, what I hope you can do is having evaluated yourself very quickly identify something you've got to do to improve. Then of course you are demonstrably and that's the evidence that sheet you completed. There is evidence that you have reflected on your practice and also you've got a plan to do something and you can take it from that box at the bottom of that page 13 and put that into a bigger CPD plan if you wish. And that is what it's all about. Yes, it's a good I idea to look at what the data law portfolio is across a number of different areas and they have other programs that looks at the judgment issues, ethical questions, a number of different, varying length programs that enable you to improve your performance and look at options for development. So, as I mentioned before that there are about a dozen options for learning development, over and above watching a data law training program. So let's explore some of those what are those learning and development options. Well, obviously a traditional training course and I hope you find the data log option of having training online is a lot easier than traveling to a venue and spending your time on a public course. But apart from that, of course, the training program, somebody could attend the program and then come back into the firm and then deliver a brief outline with that copy of the handouts and so on and so forth. And that being shared learning. But above that, when I was challenged with finding a dozen other things to do, then this was my take on it. So not to dwell on it too much. It's not in the handout particularly these sorts of things that I'm sure you're familiar with. So let's just run through a number of them. Each of them as it says here is informal learning has its pros and cons. So master and servant, I don't like the term, but what it means is you've got a good boss. If you have a look online at something called 70 2010, it's a concept that 10% comes from learning, 20% comes from having a good boss and 70% comes from doing the work, which is why so much this is focused on what you do in practice. So having a good boss is obviously the first one you will learn from him or her as as he or she supervises you, you may realize that attending to the journals. General Reading ad hoc is a very good way of picking up information about a variety of different issues. I've been able to pick up articles and so forth about ethics and so forth. The reading may be assigned by your supervisor. Third one or you may say actually I do need to know a little bit more about legal ombudsman. So I'm going to go to their site and have a look at their ethical questions. So that will be targeted a truly learning organization has good colleagues. So sharing content like this with others. Taking case studies to them asking them questions is clearly very important. External peers will always be there. An external perspective can be very helpful to you that maybe something that you will share most cities if you're located near a city will have a young lawyers group, for example, their networking with that various uh Chambers of Commerce events or licensed conveyors and so on and so on and so on, networking in the right places. Many of the larger firms run regional learning development hubs and will share a variety of different learning in that way. You may get some coaching from somebody else in the firm. Maybe internal, you may get some external coaching and that's an area that I've been developing over years is to coach people on various aspects of their their job and find it very rewarding mentoring. Uh either somebody internally is mentoring, mentoring, subtly different coaching coaching is about improvement in performance, mentoring is about more often the approach to work the pastoral matters and I've mentored a cohort of undergraduates through uh law school from 2010 onwards, two comments job swap moving into other departments, very common to have that of course when you are as a trainee in different seats, for example, and it happens a lot in commercial organizations that you are job swapping with other entities in house law firms and so on. And then finally bottom line is social media, the right sort whether that's linked in or its interest groups, within that the law society gazette interest group, etcetera etcetera will be a good opportunity to share various issues and explore that. And what that means is is that peter sample should be able to start at one level and gradually improve his performance over time and grow as a rising star of the firm. And I have to say in terms of competency, it's, I don't get out very much but actually learning how to get my little man to float up across there behind the text of the logo is something I'm really quite quietly proud of. But no, just a tongue in cheek view there, but I hope that helps give you some ideas of not only where you are currently in your approach to ethics and professionalism, you've got a benchmark to stop from, you've got options to improve or indeed to maintain that and you can use the same structure to get the dialogue going, your colleagues or others within the firm to explore those parameters and those areas that need something to improve performance and ultimately improve the corporate uh ethics and professionalism of the whole firm. So thanks for that. I'm thinking about the whole firm. What I'd like to move on now is to talk about how we do just that, to improve ethics throughout the firm

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Part 3

00:41:17

I think if you're a larger entity, it's probably a lot easier because bigger firms have been able to have the resources develop their experience over time and have got uh the senior partners agreed and what constitutes appropriate set of standards and behaviors. Uh Some larger organizations are very much involved in corporate social responsibility and so forth. And they may have people whose job it is in part to manage those sort of activities. But I think when it comes to the more modest organization, particularly those with finite resources, um then ethics of small business is actually quite an important area to consider. And again, I've got some notes on this that are within the, the workbook on pages 14 and 15. But I could hope to take you through some practical ideas of things that you can do to make a difference for those around you. As a two partner firm, two directors in this organization, we too uh feel some of these things that uh larger organizations can have the as it were luxury of larger resources to apply to this. But the first thing I think is to accept that one has the resources that you have, but decide on an ethical policy, the sort of people that you will deal with those that you won't. And I have to say that when I first started uh in business, I was self-employed, uh fairly modest organization, just me and one other um support staff. Uh I was working and doing my very best to grow the business as I could all those years ago, been established 25 years now. And I have to say my youth 25 years ago, um I did get in a situation where one client that I was doing a lot of work for, he said to me, he said, ma you know, about these sorts of things. Uh I'm trying to do a qualification in management. Can you help me write the assignments? And uh I'll do my best and he said, well, please bill me for your time. Uh I did this for a couple of occasions and then I realized that he was in fact using me to pass off as himself. Uh And after a while, I thought this really isn't the uh the, the way I like to do things. So my own ethical policy began to develop from there to the point that when I formed a partnership, we got together as partners and said, this is the sort of work we're gonna do. These are the sort of people we're not going to work for bad payers being an obvious example. So we actually developed a particular approach to things that we would do, things that we wouldn't do. And over time it stood us in some good stead. I was invited to run an in-house training program. Uh, management call stage one for a firm, went down to see them and they were, um, personal injury specialists and dealing with RT A S and so forth. We have to be chatting over lunch and I mentioned that, uh, they were sort of noticing my car in the car park and said, that's quite a modest car. And I said, well, don't worry, it's just a car I was given because my car's in the dock, um, had a little and said, oh, they jumped on this. What's that? And I said, well, I was at traffic lights and somebody pulled in the back of me cracked the bumper and, uh, you know, crack bumpers are bumper, it's being replaced. So it's in there for respraying and what have you, um, be off for a couple of days. And they smiled said, oh, well, don't worry, you, um, you probably got a grand for the, um, for whiplash in, in your neck. And I said, no, I was, I was stationary and it was just a rolling thing. I can't hardly move. I didn't get a whiplash and they said, oh, don't worry if you'd come to us you would have done. And as I drove away all the, the afternoon I thought, yeah, that isn't right. That really isn't the sort of organization I want to work for. And they were asking me if I go down again and, uh, provide some more work and, uh, I wasn't that busy that I didn't need more work. But I thought, no, there's some people I want to work for and I didn't feel comfortable working for them. So, an ethical policy starts somewhere and where does it develop? Well, it could develop into areas of other sorts of work that you going to do and how you'll actually bring the various parts together. It's quite an important part of it. Um So maybe you want to start uh uh if you don't already looking at some charitable activities, for example, I don't make a big song and dance about it, but I did work for a charity that a pal of mine uh old housemate from university, he's a trustee of the charity. And when I need a firm to work on to get my diploma in digital marketing, uh I gave up my time and gave him the uh uh the project effectively to help his charity look for online uh charitable donation. So those sorts of things are very, very handy. And when you've got staff enthusiastic as some of my folk are, then, you know, we've ended up running um wings for life for spinal injuries and uh uh events for cancer charities. And some of the girls have run um with the pink ribbon, I can't remember the charity off hand, but it was a breast cancer charity. So that uh uh ethical policy does actually help very much because not only can you then engage customers and talk about the approach you're taking to help uh various groups and individuals. It's also a very good way of recruiting good staff because let's face it. Your firm is a summary of all the staff that you employ. So getting those folk involved, uh they, you'll find they themselves want to be part of an organization that has that sense of purpose. Sense of purpose is very strong. I had the good fortune as you know, we play to law to run legal aid agency events for supervisors and see there that sense of purpose is really core to what they do and they attract good staff to that. And sure it isn't about the financial rewards. It's about doing rewarding work, access to justice. So the ethics can be used in that way to recruit and retain good talent. And for those firms that have been around for a while, uh refocusing on the original vision and sense of purpose enables one to reappraise what's one doing and realign from time to time. And I know that I set up my business to be a contract colleague to other organizations, both in marketing and in management uh in consultancy and in training. And that sticks with us, we are um uh working as contract colleagues and just today and in between recording various elements of this had a client whose office manager hadn't got the information from the partner who has made agreements with me about some training and therefore quick as a flash while a part of this was being rendered, I was able to um function as if I was an internal employee and just circulate the information internally. whereas the partner hadn't done this, but I was able to do it for the office manager and resolve it quickly and working in that way means that the ethics of working in the right way for the right people will have the bonuses for uh yourself, your clients and uh uh others around. So delivering on that best practice those standards. So if you go back to the assessment, we've just looked through assessing individuals, we want to make sure everybody does everything always to the highest standards and delivering on that, I think is the, the standard that wants to achieve. I just remember having a conversation on a, on an open program about CPD with a um a compliance officer. Uh she was new to practice and uh she said that uh uh standards to be sort of 85%. And somebody else actually chuckled and said, no, I think you mean um that uh if somebody was only working 85% then they wouldn't touch the client account until about half past three on Friday afternoon because that's about 85% of the week over. So for the rest of Friday, it's all dibs into the client account. Well, clearly not a low percentage on ethics, it's got to be uh best practice and deliver on that. And with those measures of performance, those reviews, those continued uh appraisals of what constitutes good practice. That evaluation is a very simple, straightforward way of evaluating. It allows staff to go back again and again and revisit and see areas to improve and monitor and maintain those sorts of things. So delivering on best practice is of course a fundamental and is very, very important. So with that in mind, let's um explore a couple of uh um uh case scenarios to see how you think about these sorts of things. Um So it's not applying any particular uh code of conduct issues or any element of the uh Sras handbook for solicitors. It's about things that happen in practice. Let's imagine these and these are reproduced on page 16 of the workbook. You can grab a hold of that if you want, but I'll talk you through it. So the first one, you're working in the accounts payable department and uh uh while you are driving home one night, um you uh hear something on the radio, you know that Tom your office manager, senior person dictates that uh the firm will be a late payer of suppliers So when somebody runs training ho ho or you acquire, you know, you buy something it or whatever it might be, you will as a, as a sort of strategy as an approach to, um, be a slow in payment of local firms. But while you're driving home, you hear that your local MP um, has been asking for whistleblowers to defend local employment initiative where of course the local firms don't get paid, it does risk jobs. And you think about this while you're driving home through the, um, country lanes or cross town or wherever you're driving, you're thinking about this thing. Well, that's, that's, I know what I'm doing and I'm doing what I'm told. But, um, is this really, you know what I should be doing? So I'm giving you on the, uh, in the workbook, uh, four options. So, would you, which one of these would you do? Uh, would you do a bit of one, a bit of the other or none of them and do something completely different. So, given the local MP is calling for whistle blowers, it's be easy for you to make a, uh, a call from whatever phone outside the office and talk to, uh, the local MP. So you think, well, I'll give her a call, you know, this is just not right. I'm not happy working in this way. Uh, so I shall do the whistle blowing here. You may say that probably because it's a, um, you're going to be independent um off the record and you won't be identified. Uh It may be a way of stemming your firm's system at negligence because after all friends and family work in local businesses, you may actually say that. Well, OK, you get back to work the next day, call, a formal meeting with Tom, your office manager and explain that uh your firm's behaviors, uh you know, isn't appropriate. You're not very comfortable with this. It's affecting you indirectly in terms of the way you work indirectly in terms of friends or family who work for local suppliers, uh, and suggest that the firm's reputation could be challenged locally in case somebody, um, did a whistleblowing, not you, you clearly wouldn't do that, but somebody else might have heard the same thing. Um, maybe if you think secretly that job losses in local firms seem a bit extreme. It may be that you just decide to have a, uh, a water cooler moment, a quiet conversation with Tom at some stage, a quiet conversation just to explain what's going on. Uh, and if he refuses to do anything about it, then you threaten to go public on that. Or indeed, you may just say, well, actually it's nothing to do with me. I can't change things. I think I'll keep my head down. MP. S are always moaning about it. Er, and, er, they're out to just grab a headline so there's four options. What are you going to do. Well, it really depends on the position you're in the seniority, you've got the degree to which you've made the policy, the effect you think that policy is having on who the local suppliers are. Um, we happen to use a stationary supplier, that's a national chain, but it's the local shop. Um, obviously we go in there, we go to delivery and we pay. But if we do have um, uh, something large delivered by the shop to us, uh, we have to pay straight away, but you may choose that when it's not so bad. They're a national firm, they're turning over millions. Uh What's your, um, a couple of 100 quid on some flip charts or whatever it is that you've, you've required. So maybe you're not too worried about it. Maybe your own personal feeling is a difference to the policy your firm has and this creates direct pressure. It creates stress and working in a way that you don't feel comfortable with is of course, um, stressful and it is something that ought to be aware of. And, uh, you may decide that maybe that's not the firm you want to work for and when the time is right, try to find another way of, uh, of earning an honest living. So I'm not gonna be prescriptive here as to what, which of those options you would do. You probably, uh, if you do feel particularly strongly about it, we'll have a word with Tom and say, look, you've heard about this thing from local MP S. You're anxious that some other individual out with the accounts department, somebody else will know about this and, uh, it wouldn't be very good from the firm's point of view. So, are we really making that much money? Are we really saving that much money? You will know, for example, how much you spend on other supplies because the major cost in any particular month, of course is salaries and office rents and so on and so on. The overheads, uh which, which uh, um, the uh, payments are often monthly. So that's evened out the, the cash flow and so forth. So not paying local suppliers is probably only gonna be a few quid here, a few quid there. Truth, you know, as a percentage of your overall monthly expenditure. So maybe there's a middle ground between some of these things. So at the one end of the scale, you'll leave and find another job. At the other end of the scale, you may choose to have some conversation with Tom about the unease you feel with this in case the firm gets dropped in it. And after all your clients come from a local uh region, the local area and therefore maybe uh indirectly because of family members affected by this particular policy and let's face it, bad news does spread. So perhaps not er, one that will give an immediate answer in this program. But why not use this one to start off a conversation over a coffee break to see what people's attitude is. Because that, uh, uh, uh, temperature taking test on the employees you've got and the attitudes and so forth to something like this may be quite illustrative for discussion about ethical behavior and help you if you're a more senior person to get a take on what would be the most appropriate um, ethical behavior for a local firm dealing with local suppliers, for example. Ok. The second one on that page, um, page 16, slightly different, but nonetheless important. Um, this is where there's been a, um, a data leak. You are a supervisor in a legal aid practice and one afternoon you nip to the loo and you over here, somebody in the neighboring um uh cubicle or whatever on a mobile phone, having a conversation and she's telling the caller about a recent incident where the senior partner managed to lose, uh a data stick, one of these lovely little devices with, you know, memory stick and what have you and it's got lots and lots of client data on there. Lots and lots of uh case file matters and so forth and some of it by virtue of the client, you're with a very, very sensitive nature, of course, to the individual concerned and, you know, don't really want to have this in the public arena. Um You investigate this and reveal the incident did indeed occur. And next morning, the yogurt has hit the fan and the news is in the press. So it's out there, it's out in the public domain and you realize what's been going on and you know who the whistle blower was. This is somebody called Anna. So what would you do? Well, given that Anna was the source of it and you'll know who it is confidentially, you'll go to the head of hr the managing partner, whoever and somebody more senior than you and report Anna saying, look, this is where the data leak came from. It's not good that we are um, bragging about internal practice. Uh, that is confidentiality breach, but from not the client point of view but confidentiality breach in terms of operating practice within the firm and as a legal aid firm that's so damaging. We can't do it. Suppose it got out that that's what the Anna did. Uh It may be that um, somebody who looks after the communications, uh, marketing officer, uh, somebody or senior than you who may be involved in, uh, publishing some guys or another. Um, and let them know who the source was. If that wasn't indeed the managing partner, it may be. You warn Anna about it. Take it to one side, tell her, you overheard conversation and warn her about speaking out inappropriately outside the firm, but she wouldn't do anything more. You'd leave it there or in fact, do you pretend you've never heard the conversation, uh, the part that was negligent and deserved to be dumped in it. What ethical considerations do you have here? Well, it's the loyalty here, isn't it? Loyalty to staff, loyalty to the firm, loyalty to your, um, your own self conscience when it comes to, uh, dealing with matters over and above this. So, somebody has been, uh, giving the whistleblowing, talking to somebody and it's in the press the next morning. So something has to be done. Surely, are you the person that's going to do it? Who is the person taking on? Is there a compliance officer? Is that the managing partner, head of legal practice, managing partner? Would that be the route, um, would it be appropriate to let some know who deals with press anyway, to deal with this and maybe put a statement out or something like that? Because the name is there and it's going to damage your, um, future prosperity, possibly because, uh, getting this into the area out there on the airwaves, clearly going to be damaging for the firm, clearly going to be damaging to the client point of view, the trust they place in you, uh, and so forth, they have a really devastating effect, uh, very quickly. So, in which to what degree do you do that to defend yourself, defend the firm, uh, defend your employment. Um, or do you think? Well, there's nothing I can actually do. What is done is done. I don't want to drop my colleague in it. Um, she's a genius list that she should know better, but I don't want to drop her in it. It'll come out in the wash anyway. It won't change anything if she gets a good kicking, metaphorically or otherwise kicked out sacked. Um, I'm just gonna keep my head down and again, I'm not gonna be prescriptive here because that's not the point. It's not me telling you what you should do here. It's for you to use this as a think as a thought as a discussion uh with colleagues and explore what the corporate response might be, what your own personal response might be and raise the discussion, raise the issues because when you do that, you do get a very, very clear take on the uh engagement of your people with the firm, with the work they do, uh and so on and so forth. So I hope you find that uh illuminating interesting and uh by all means, I'll give you my email at the end, uh, email me some sort of thoughts or conclusions if you so wish it's always interesting to get your view on this because when it comes to code of conduct, when it comes to um the solicitors um regulation authority handbook, these are very clear what the parameters are. But when it comes to ethics, one person's ethical behavior, moral behavior will be at a different standard to yours, your standards, their standards, something that's very difficult to, to write down in, er, in clear policies that clearly are very good guidelines, but then somebody has a moral duty to follow them or not. So, uh, leave that one with you and hope that was useful to raise some of the issues and discuss with other people about those particular issues. Let's move it on to have a look at those mandatory principles. I want to leave it at that point because there we've repeated what all those are the integrity, the trust, the independence, the kind of interest and so on and so forth. There are some things in there that are statute, there are some things in there that are very, very clear guidance and some things, uh, certainly in terms of dealing with, um, ethical issues, integrity and ethical issues, have less prescription and more clarity of expectation of what the issues are. Ok, let's move it on. Ok. Well, if you have a look at page 17 of the workbook, you'll see we're looking at the, uh, sr a principles, the mandatory principles and their impact on support staff because what it says there, the code forms part of the handbook, uh, 10 mandatory principles or persuasive. And as you can see highlighted there, um, it talks about uh professional standards expected of all firms and individuals and goes on to including those individuals, owners who may not be lawyers. I think it's also important to recognize that some of these, uh are affected by and some guys or other, your support staff, I think support staff, very important group. And for all of the lovers of irony, I saw this mark and Thorpe, that's perfect, isn't it? Um, for support staff, wizards? Ok. Well, let's have a little look at some of these and then, uh, understand what influence that they have on various, uh, parts of maintaining the corporate brand, the code of conduct, the ethics that your firm has and the way it approaches doing the work. And as we'll see, this can offer quite a substantive uh competitive differential by getting these things right now. Clearly, the support staff in reception or administration, functioning some guys rather particularly their client facing are not practicing law. Uh paralegals may give legal advice, of course trainees. But as far as the rule of law is concerned, every member of your team needs to follow the appropriate things in your office manual in terms of how they engage in the workplace. And with that, of course, will to things like diversity and equality and opportunity. So those things come up somewhere else. So managing that of course, is going to be very, very important. So uh they're not uh involved in the distribution of legal, know how per se, but they are of course, uh need to follow particular guidelines. They should of course act with integrity and not allow that to be compromised in any way. So again, noting that uh support staff have a valuable function, not just to support you but also to be supporting the client. And that integrity is an important part now, quite clearly occasionally. And I have this here that there's a phone call from a uh uh a marketing organization trying to sell us something. And my support staff will say no, I'm sorry, he's busy or whatever. I can overhear those sort of conversations and not need to take the call. Ok. That's a little white lie. But I'm thinking here about the client facing function with existing clients and so forth and maintaining the certain uh integrity of behaviors, of course, that are very important part of your service delivery. Uh They uh put it there in gray text. They're not so involved with, er, er, allowing independence to be compromised, but they have a small contribution there. Support staff have two roles uh as far as their work life is concerned, one is to save you time and secondly, is to support the client. And if they're not doing either those two things, what are they doing? And I don't mean support staff from the point of view of your, it people or your hr people or your um uh uh a, a accounting functions which may not necessarily have a client facing role. But if they do have any sports staff have a client facing role, uh proactive uh making calls to them or reactive, responding to calls from them then clearly, um the act in the best interests is clearly going to be very important. So what elements of their job is couched in those terms? So they are following the same party line, the same corporate brand that you're uh proposing to offer your clients, they will maintain service standards, proper standard of service. So it isn't in terms of the uh the legal aspects, of course, but in other areas, what constitutes proper standard for them to meet and greet and so forth and follow up and whatever admin is involved, they need to be trustworthy as individuals. Because um you know, yourself, when you are interacting with your um uh medical practitioners that uh the support staff are a very important role there for the trust you have in the service generally. Uh And they are very important people. So likewise, within your firm, they're not going to be dealing with legal and regulatory obligations. But uh uh that's going to be into your hands, business governments at risk less. So, of course, for our support staff. But then uh elements of risk that they may have a contribution towards and it's useful to have a look at the uh the risk model from the SR A and see what elements of that ought to be brought to the office manual and support staff function roles to make sure that they are uh dealing with things in the right way already mentioned, the equality diversity matters. They need to function in that way, not only for each other within the firm, but obviously and very clearly to uh client facing functions as well. And then they are protecting clients, money assets, well, not very much. So leaving that a little bit there. So I think as we run over those, we can see, there's a lot of things that your support staff have a function to deal with and that they need to be able to resolve problems or not create problems, uh which will be something to have a look at. So I hope you can build that into some useful uh approach that you take to improve the uh the the ethics and professionalism of the firm at a corporate level as well as at the uh support level, which I hope has been useful. Uh Give you some thoughts and ideas. OK. Well, let's have a look at some more scenarios that uh explore the ethical as well as the uh the principles behind delivering a proper standard of service. Chapter four of the uh code of conduct is about client confidentiality. And I'm sure that you as a practicing solicitor are very well aware of the ramifications of this and what the outcomes are and what behaviors should be under this particular heading. But I would like to look at a couple of examples of the material that we've taken from the data law PSC to look at a couple of case scenarios to see what your considerations are, some of which of course are governed by the um regulation if you like and some of which are governed by your ethical considerations. Um But I also want to use these in a slightly different way and that is to have a look to see whether there's the role of support staff, particularly in the first of the two. I'm about to describe and also therefore how that may have an impact on any ethical considerations. OK. Now I've reproduce these um uh in the workbook. It's on pages 18 and we have be having a look at that, but we're looking there. Um uh and it's covered in the notes page page 18 that the client confidentiality uh as defined in the handbook as outlined, there is looking at the role of support staff and that they all members of the firm in house practices including support staff. This is highlighted text in bold from the Sras uh site on the handbook. So that's version uh 19 of the handbook published October uh 2017 as mentioned earlier on in this program. And let's have a look at the first of these scenarios and that is uh a client that appears to have vanished. OK. Um So let's just go through what the uh sonari is telling us and then take some considerations, what we should do about this, Mr Good here. Is a businessman and, uh, he has uh, some rather dubious dealings and he's owed some money, not only to you but also, um, he's been pursued in their revenues bank and other creditors and he's sort of disappeared. He's got some jewelry. He's got a Lamborghini and he says he's in Madrid and he's off to Peru. Anyway. The upshot of it is, is that, um, uh, you have two phone calls that morning, one is from his ex-wife. Um, uh, and she is not a client at the firm, but she is your client's ex-wife. And he demands to know where Mr Goodhue is because this month's maintenance hasn't been paid. Secondly, you have a contact from the Thames Valley drug squad, uh, seeking information about your client's whereabouts. And then in addition, you have a process server coming from the, uh, his um, private bank, uh, business banking and, um, he, they have been instructed by the solicitors of the bank. The panel, of course, which banks deal with. I wish your client has a business account. You wish, uh, the process server wishes to serve a writ to recover a quarter of a million pound debt owed by your client to the bank. Now. Ok. This is a scenario that I'm sure you as a, as a qualified solicitor will know the answer to as to which ones of these you do and, and why, but what about your support staff? It might be one and there's no reason why you shouldn't use this as part of your in house, uh, uh, training to explore what the issues are here. Um, and, uh, if somebody takes the call or, um, Miss the good Hugh's ex-wife pitches up in reception and you, the um, uh, the solicitor are unavailable. What would the support staff do? And when I say that don't forget, your support staff would also include those people who cover for lunchtime. And I have visited as much. My job is to visit law firms across the country for various uh business matters myself. And I do see some youngsters who are sitting in reception at lunchtime, for example. And um how do they handle people coming in off the street? What's their uh ways of doing things? And is it as robust as your permanent support staff are who happen to be out on lunch uh getting a sandwich or something? So, uh you know, that would be quite uh quite important for you to explore. Ok, I think if we go through this, we know um that uh the uh the uh outcomes in chapter four are all about making sure that the uh you may maintain a client's matter which include their location as a confidential piece of information, not sharing data like that with certain bodies. Uh And uh make sure they're achieved in the uh uh clearly, if the client waves that confidentiality, then of course, that's different, that confidentiality remains even after the passing of your client um, dying. Uh, and it's in perpetuity and again, unless that's been waived or indeed, whatever information comes into the public domain, uh, not through you, but through some other route. And then of course, uh this, uh that's not kept confidential. So, um, what action here would you take with these three? If any, would you just say no to all of them? Which ones could you say something to? Well, um I'm not gonna go into the depth of the um outcome focused regulation and the outcomes defined in the uh online, in the code of conduct. If you are in any doubt, then you can look these up at another occasion on the sr a site, but clearly you could keep that information confidential uh from the uh ex-wife, uh the Thames Valley drug squad. Well, in here as the case has presented, we don't know what um, inquiry they wish to make, whether or not he is indeed a suspect and wishes to be interviewed or whether he is just going to be University of Commerce helping with inquiries. But as a Brexit solicitor, you would know about the Proceeds of Crime Act and anti terrorism legislation that would cover whether you do or don't disclose to the Thames Valley Police. But again, something like that, I think it's easy for support staff to uh to recognize that um ex-wife. Uh No, you're not a client. Uh No, I'll get back to you and block the ex-wife. But when it's the Thames Valley drug squad turning up that can as it will frighten a lot of people in reception and may respond in a way that you perhaps wish they hadn't. So it's worth exploring and similarly, when it comes to process servers, um, uh, I rented an office, uh, on industrial estate for a while and not long after moving in a process server turned up for the former occupants. Despite the signage on the beside the front door of the offices, there's who we were. This person still came through and I'm quite tall, I'm 6 ft four and weigh �200. But the guy that pitched up was taller than me and broader and quite intimidating. So a process of bank for bank debt then uh this is a um there's no duty to disclose to a private enterprise like a business bank. Um Unless of course it's a public body. Uh uh Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs being one example where you have a, a duty to do so. Now you knew that. But would your support staff know those sorts of things? And again, might use that as a discussion to uh use within your own uh initiatives to look after one or two people who are in that situation to give them a refresher to remind them of their important role within the organization because uh um they can be affected by some of the outcomes that, uh, the people arriving in reception may give them and uh, not respond in perhaps the best way for you. Um, and naturally enough, the compliance officer legal practice, um, is somebody who would probably take this role on board to make sure that all staff are following it. So if you aren't the cop, then, uh, that's the information you could pass to him or her that would help uh deal with these sorts of things as a um uh to establish what the uh procedures are within your firm to make sure that they are as robust as you'd want them to be. Ok. Well, there's one that does definitely does involve the support staff because of people arriving at reception as these three entities would do phone calls or something. Um, but this one is slightly different and there's AAA no clear guideline on this one second scenario. Uh And this is over page on page 19 of the workbook. What you've got is Doug the industrial worker um pursuing a claim against his employer for contamination in the workplace and he is extremely ill lying in hospital. So expert witnesses are involved and there are two expert witnesses. One of which says, um uh that uh the exposure to the chemicals your client has endured will inevitably kill him within a month. But the other report is more optimistic. It doesn't refer to a uh a fatal dose at all your client tells you, the doctors examined him, gave very little feedback and he asked you to tell him what you know about his condition. So, again, this is, um, something that could be, uh, uh, sort of nailed to the, uh, um, uh, the, the code of conduct and the outcomes and the behaviors and so forth. And they give you, if you work in those environments a very clear idea of what you would, would do. It all depends on what you have agreed with the client or what you haven't. What you're not able to do on this one is to decide whether or not um poor doug la there in the uh the hospital is in, in fact, uh a particularly vulnerable individual and you are not able to judge whether the news that hit of one report, uh which you don't know whether it is accurate or not any more than the second report, which doesn't suggest he's got a fatal dose. Uh The effect it will have on him. So your personal duty um may be waived here depending on what the situation is. Now, I found when discussing this with others and I'm not gonna go down the route of what the particular indicative behaviors are. This is just straight out of the stack of the materials we use for the data law PSC. What I've discovered in discussing this with people who know a lot more about uh the dealing with for example, clinical negligence or for example, um industrial diseases or um contamination of workplaces and all that sort of thing and, and uh cases there of personal injury as to the way in which you would handle this. So I have heard different opinions as to what one would do um and how that would be handled. So, on the one hand, some would say, well, you've got these two reports. So you, you, so you have a duty to disclose material matters to your client. And some would say, well, we would tell him, but others would say, well, we don't know whether they is a particularly vulnerable individual. So I can't answer it on the strength of the information I've given here, which is fair enough. Others would say we'll let the two experts who have a conflict um to get in touch with each other uh under their own hypocritical to keep that confidential between them. And that's fair enough and they can resolve the um the differences and you can take the client. Well, I want the two people to talk together. So we get a clear view for you and I will let you know what their clear view is. And then the third option, of course, from all the above is that the uh two medical reports are shared with the uh hospital team who are looking after Doug um under this, the three of them, the two medical experts and the consultant looking after um Doug in hospital, uh have an opportunity to share the information and then decide the way forward. But again, it now moves away from uh the code of conduct. The um what is actually written into the code, mandatory principles, client confidentiality, chapter four, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera to an ethical decision as to what you would do ethically here. And I don't want to because I can't because there isn't a definitive answer to this. I can train people as to what the code says. And I can train people to look at it from a variety of points of view, but this is one in particular where there is an ethical consideration as well. And I, I look at what would be useful. Um and I can't have AAA one sided ethical conversation with you because it's mainly just broadcasting. But it might be interesting for you to have if you are involved in um uh personal injury or that sort of thing, me medical negligence, not that there's medical negligence per se here, but have a conversation and then look at the ethical questions that come from that, that may then take a particular direction in dealing with that because at the end of the day, it's all about handling client expectations and that's really what I want to move on to now.

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Part 4

00:46:52

So when we're looking at the client expectations, what we have is a gap, a gap between what they expect and what they perceive they're getting. And I'd like to explore this through a very true um uh substantial model. It's been around quite a while. It's called the serve model, the uh service quality gap model. I'm going to take you through uh how it's presented. And then we can look at each of those various uh steps because it's that gap between expectation and reality that determines really whether or not you're delivering a proper standard of service. Now, I know this phrase, proper standard of service coming out of the um fifth principle is something that one can drive a double decker bus through. Because what you think a no is a proper standard of service. The client's perception is that that wasn't a proper standard of service. And one has to look at all the complaints that are levied by individuals or industries or firms against the profession to find as I have done because I've worked with a lot of the um insurers that people are providing professional indemnity insurance and they engaged us to run, uh, a variety of, um, programs because most of the complaints they receive were not substantiated, but they were down to, uh, a lack of understanding by the client. Not necessarily a lack of communication from the service providers, professional services, um, accounting and, um, uh, law, of course, not from the point of view of the service providers, not giving correct communications but the understanding that people had of what they were being told or indeed what they had had written to them by email or um letter or what have you. So, um it's not always your fault. I'm not suggesting by any stretch of the imagination that um what are we gonna be looking at? It's entirely down to the service providers uh inadequacy in any shape or form. But it is important. We do acknowledge the differences between a client's perception and their expectation and that is where service quality is an issue. So this model here is a very useful one. It's been around for quite a while. And again, it's something that to some degree uh other support staff may have a contribution to make, to improve what's going on, but mostly it's there for the um the case worker. Um But there are elements of it, of course, where support staff, where they exist and who get involved have an impact on what's going on. So this is reproduced uh for you on page 20 of the notes, I'll take you through how it gets developed and explore the impact uh on your service delivery and what you can do about sharpening up some of the rough edges if there are any. So mind the gap, the gap between perception and reality and what this line represents above it, we have the client below it, we have the service provider. And the way the model is presented is that we recognize and you only have to pick up today's newspaper. Uh I'm not being specific about today, but I bet there's things going on in there where there's word of mouth or somebody's view about the profession. And there's a number of things that do form a client's uh perception of the profession. Somebody down at the dog and fox on a Friday night will have known somebody who did something and it involved a lawyer and this happened and that happened and that is very, very powerful. That word of mouth of course, is now not necessarily mouth to mouth as it were talking, listening, but using social media and the uh and the speed with which communications and opinion and so forth. Get shared. Everybody is a publisher. Everybody has a film uh device in their pocket. Everybody has a uh a voice and that is for good and for bad. But that's the way it is. So individual personal needs. I'm sure when I bought a house through a solicitor, my needs were quite different from anybody else's needs. And those personal needs are often viewed by various demographics of people. The various experiences they've got, um, whether they have engaged anybody before. Um, the first time I did conveyancing was involved in conveyancing. I was a rabbit in the headlights. I had no idea. And then having moved a few times as the family has grown and so forth, I now perceive ho ho ho that I'm a more sophisticated user of legal services than people that have used uh services rather less frequently, frequently. So we have this problem out there in the big wide world. It's a great uh uh client group will come at you with their own opinions built on a whole variety of different perceptions and experiences and ideas and somebody else's anecdote and all these things come together to form expectation, what their expectation is. And we have done as a business, uh daw law, a lot of client surveys on behalf of law firms. And that's one of the things that we do. Um And this may be by uh face to face interview in the corporate environment, maybe telephone interview. Um at uh uh at one level, it may be by um online or indeed paper based um uh uh questionnaires and so forth to understand clients perception. We've got a lot of uh information there about that. So, uh in no particular order, but there are a number of different uh uh differences. Uh And it's listed in the notes as to what they are. But essentially, I think one of the, when a client walks in through the door is on the phone contacts you in some way that there is a gap between the solicitor's perception of what the client is expecting and indeed what the client's expectation is that misunderstanding and interview, misunderstanding of conversation, misunderstanding uh when two individuals are talking to each other, um it's not as listed the uh equal gaps, just putting it together as the um uh as the model as a, as a development uh is actually more a a knowledge gap as listed. It's given the, the number number two, as the difference between the perception that you as the manager of the case matter is going to be differing from what the client's actual expectation is. And we find this a lot and you'll know if you're conveyance and you'll know if you're in family, you'll, you'll know if you're in uh criminal practice, criminal defense that the differences between his or her client expect expected services and what you believe uh they want is actually a misunderstanding as suggested there that 80% of firms believe that they, they deliver superior customer service. But it's actually in reality, only 8% of the customers think those same organizations deliver superior. So the perception of what is superior, what is not um I'm not uh working for my competitors and I believe that what I do is pretty good, but I have no idea what my competitors do because I don't invest in researching that. Uh, it's a very difficult thing to do anyway. But my perception is that my delivery is pretty good. So I may have that knowledge gap between, uh the perception that the client has and perception that I have. So that is the, uh, the knowledge gap then. Of course, we said, OK, well, that for now, I've got an idea of what the client's after but er slightly there, uh I'm now gonna decide how I'm gonna manage the case. So that's service quality specifications. What are we gonna do? You get the dates in there, the case management system through these things up uh in a timeline and that each case is managed as a, as a project in way in which it's done. And some of you, there have got hundreds of uh of uh fairly modest cases and you've got to balance all those spinning plates and uh deal with the client inquiry. So you've got to start with some sort of um uh policy or case management system that provides a particular direction. And that's the the policy gap, the gap between the perceptions you have uh and the service quality specification that you're gonna put together and that then causes that little problem there. But then of course, as we start to communicate with the client about what we do and deliver those services, then of course, there are those uh differences occurring there because we said we would do it promptly. But the case management system isn't as prompt as the client expected, et cetera. Uh We tell the clients what we're doing and they think it's different from what they've actually heard and the whole thing gets rather messed up. The perception is then differing from the expectation and that's the hub of what this model is about. Now, none of those little gaps are major on, on their own. They're not a cause for concern. They're not a cause for complaint to the legal ombudsman or the regulation authority or whatever law society, whatever route they choose to, to start their process or indeed complain to you. They're just five little gaps that when they all add up, start to make uh clients a little bit more anxious about what's going on and less than satisfied, they haven't done anything about that. They haven't as good, good old British people do write a letter, they don't do anything. They're just a little bit miffed. And that again, uh feeds into the past experiences on the next matter when they engage somebody on the next house move in four or five years time or whatever. So each of these uh gaps are worth exploring, worth understanding just a summary of them uh Before we move forward is to remember that there is that client gap, a gap, a gap between what he or she expects and what he or she perceives they're getting and perception becomes reality. Um, if I perceive you are slow, then you are slow as far as I'm concerned. And it's not whether you are slow or whether you said you'd get back promptly, uh, promptly means different things to different people and therefore response times uh become very, very crucial. We see this in reception arriving for meetings at a given time and, you know, you'll get clients send you an email and then five minutes later, they'll be on the phone. Did you get my email? What do you think the days? Of course, when a letter would arrive and you have a good day or two to think about it and write a response to get it in the post. It will arrive back at the time a week later. So there's your first one, then of course, if we are not uh understanding clients, the interview, uh the uh knowledge that we have of what the client expects and what we believe they expect creates that. And sometimes that can come out in client uh surveys. When we've done this with uh firms across the country, they're looking at the opinion of a client at the end of the first interview. Now, that of course, isn't something that most firms will bother to research. But having had that first interview and have that half hour 45 minute discussion, the client's then left with uh uh you know, frequently asked questions and, uh, um, gonna get a, uh, a client care letter and other documents and so on and so forth. That is very interesting time to, uh understand whether or not the client has understood what they expect and whether that is, uh, close to their original expectations and feed that back into the casework function to decide. Well, have we actually, uh, met everything that we expected to meet that knowledge gap? And once one closes that down, then of course, the service quality goes up from the client's point of view. Um type of knowledge gap is important, but of course, the case managers is called the policy gap, the um the quality specification. OK. This is what we'll do. This is how quickly we'll come back. And the solicitors regulation authority will define if they, if somebody, for example, writes a letter of complaint or phones with a complaint, be verbal or through any other media nowadays doesn't just have to be uh written. It's one of the updates in the code since 2020 07 that it it can be accepted through any of the traditional media. If somebody does complain, there is a certain timeline of which one would respond and who had calls to complain about the delays to his uh rt a matter uh was told that their policy is to get back within three weeks. They'll acknowledge that uh a letter has been received and they'd get back within three weeks. Now. I think that three weeks, um, is a little bit of a long time. If somebody's waiting to find out what's happening on their, uh, case matter, they've been delayed, delayed, delayed, not getting the information, not getting the information and have a substantive complaint. That incidentally the legal ombudsman said, yes, you should take it up. This is the first thing you should do and you'll have this period of time for me. It just seems 33 weeks is a long time, but maybe from, um, I certainly would like, we have a course to complain and want to know what's going on. I would respond a lot faster. A quality specification is clearly going to be important for you to define. And that of course, has a lot to do with the professionalism of the firm just because it says three weeks, uh it's perhaps more professional to respond faster than what the uh uh accepted level is. That's raising your, you have a uh a uh a metaphorical line in the sand, but you just make yours better than that standard. The fourth one then is actually delivering on what you said you would do. You've got this back and you do actually deliver on it. And in my experience of client care and marketing over many years, I think it's much better to uh uh to underpromise and overliver in other words, say, so I'll get back to you next week, but get back quicker than, than that. So your quality specification may be one thing, but then you can uh deliver a little bit better than that. And maybe that's why responding to get actually in three weeks allows people to come back in 10 days. For example, that delivery gap becomes very close to um the uh the client gap, the expectation, the perceptions and making sure that those communications uh work really well. I do remember um as my uh uh my mother Goba was profoundly deaf since the Second World War. And she said, er there nuns are deaf as those that don't listen. So the communication gap is the communications going out, it isn't sufficient to accept that. Uh just because you press the send button, that the information that was in your head that went on to your keyboard and into the email and out into the ether has actually got into the head of the client. At the other end. Communication is only complete when the idea in your mind is exactly the same idea in the recipient's mind. So communication gaps on our a long chain and just because you've completed part of it doesn't mean that it's actually got to the other side as well. So explore those, think about those, think about the processes that you have as you take your clients through uh service quality and then see of these five areas, which ones uh well, they all fall down to you as a case worker, of course. But which ones do your support staff contribute towards and you'll find that their contribution helps to close up those gaps and make life a lot better that improves your professionalism, that improves the service quality. And that is good ethical business. Ok. Well, think about the, uh, the ethics of good business. Let's talk about, uh, the next part, which is all about discrimination in the workplace. What I'd like to do is to turn to the discrimination uh, in the workplace and to build on the, uh, information of the Equality Act 2010. Now, it's not for me to uh, uh, reiterate the Act and so forth. But I do remember when I was involved with the Chartered Management Institute, I was a subject specialist taken over from John Wilhurt. Uh, he was the marketing subject specialist for the institute on their diploma uh program. I took over that role and the businesses, our businesses merged and, um, I moved from there to be the people subject specialist. And what this meant was I was to write the workbooks for the uh diploma in management modules. And the workbook included uh discrimination in the workplace. And I use this as part of management course, stage one and stage two. And I remember delivering this with the protected characteristics all carefully identified and somebody put their head up and said, ma it's changed, this is happening to the president here, this has changed or this is a new one or this is not on the statute, but it's about to happen. And what that that showed to me, although that the Equality Act is um has been in various forms, it is a movable uh event. So I hope the information you're seeing today uh matches your understanding of what is actually happening er within the various versions and incarnations of the Equality Act. So I'm gonna be looking at the information I've drawn this from not only the Act, the Quality and Human Rights Commission and looked at that, I produced material in your workbook, which incidentally, I don't want you to look at, at the moment. I've got a little question to ask you in a second or two. So, uh, it is in there. I can tell you that, but don't look at it just now because we're gonna look at those protected characteristics and understanding of what they mean in practice in the workplace and also those various ways that people engage with the workplace that where there should be um, equality of opportunity and so forth. So, accepting that little caveat that things move forward. It is, uh, quite interesting and this is the little test I'd like to invite you to, uh, participate in. Here's my little man with his pen and his writing. And what I'd like you to do is I'd like you to write down on a sheet. Of paper without going forward stopping the film, of course. And without looking at the workbook, I'd like you to identify the 13 protected characteristics, the characteristics that differentiate one person from another. Ok. There are 13 of these. Yes, I know there are uh uh seven core pieces of legislation that deal with this. But under some of those subheadings, uh some of those headings, there are subheadings of other uh elements that differentiate people, their protected characteristics. So there are 13 of these. And uh for example, I'll tell you the first one is age, I'm old. You're not, you can't discriminate against me because I'm old or I against you because you're young. So age discrimination, of course is, uh which means there's no uh default retirement age, for example, et cetera, et cetera. OK. It's not the implications of the act that I want to look at the moment. It's just the protected characteristics. There's another 12 in terms of workplace activities. Well, I mentioned PSC, a few times people engaged in the PSC are on a um a fixed term contract. They got a two year um uh trainee ship and there is no, uh not everyone that joins that has a permanent job after they've been in that training contract. So in other words, they are um uh part time, part time workers, full time workers or contract workers or different sorts of workplace activities. So I'm giving them all away. Well, I'd like you to see how many you can get down there is 18 in total. And I'm gonna give you one point for everyone you get right and minus two for everyone that you didn't know off, you go pause the film and see if you can identify all 18 of these areas for discrimination. Ok. How did you get on, how long were you pausing the film before you highlighted all 18? Well, uh, let's run through them and see what you make of them. And remember, I'm gonna give you one point for everyone you get right. And um uh minus two for everyone, you didn't know and I'll explain why the minus two. in a moment, let's run through. Well, I mentioned age, age discrimination, that's uh that's one of them. Uh And therefore, uh there should be discrimination discrimination on the basis of somebody's age, fair enough. The second, no particular order not necessary as I have them uh in the workbook. I'm not reading from the workbook as you know, then you cannot discriminate on the basis of somebody's gender. So gender discrimination. Now, of course, the act is sex discrimination. Um But clearly we do discriminate against people who have sex in the office. Uh It's the gender that we are concerned about here. Um And uh we don't mind which gender you find attractive again, provided that attraction scheme kept to the appropriate time and place. So there you are a point for each of those and again, in no particular order, um, we don't mind if you have a religion or indeed you have a set of beliefs which doesn't include a religion like atheists or so forth. But religion and belief, but they are different characteristics. A religion is somebody's, uh, uh, religious, uh, leaning, but belief actually does include something a little bit broader than just religious belief. And we have to be careful here about what constitutes a bona fide and reasonable relief uh belief system. Um In the 2011 uh UK census, there were 450,000 people who put the put down under religion in the, in the little box that was titled Other, they wrote the word Jedi and I think there is a precedent here, but you probably know more about those sort of things than I do because I don't read them as a matter of course, um, that the judge decided that, uh being a Jedi doesn't constitute a bona fide religion. And therefore, uh neither is it a belief system. So, if you happen to see somebody walking around the office of a Light Saber, um, well, you know, just, uh be careful what you do. And so the Darth Vader is, well, just keep well away from those. But on a serious note, belief could actually incur um, you in a little bit of difficulty with some other, more recognized beliefs. Um, I have known somebody who's, and I know that some religions aren't very comfortable with the concept but the idea that somebody would consider themselves to be a white witch, uh, they weren't pagan, they weren't wicker, but they just had a belief system to do with the natural world. They followed the lunar and the, um, solar, uh phases and therefore had various times of the year that they wanted to celebrate. Now, you may argue. Well, that's a little bit of Bunkum. Well, that's, that's your view, of course. But, uh, of course, I wouldn't dare to say anything like that. Neither would I to suggest that your religion is Bunkum or whatever else or anybody else is for that matter. So, religion is one area, belief is something slightly different and it does include uh, a test case which I was told by a delegate on one of the courses, somebody had, um, been an employer of the firm. They were very concerned about carbon footprint about being green and complaining about plastic bottles and all this sort of thing and uh environmental concerns and they had a bit of, um, uh at work and so forth. Anyway, one day this chap was going with his boss, they flew to Ireland from the UK for a particular conference, stayed overnight. And then he was on his way back the next day. And when they got onto the plane, the boss realized that he had left his phone, uh at the bedside cabinet or something in the hotel when they land at landed at Heathrow. Uh, they phoned the hotel, the hotel, yes, housekeepers found it. We put it, it turned it off. It's in a jiffy bag and, uh, they'll have it in the morning. They'll send it, you know, signed delivery or whatever. And the boss was quite angry about this, having himself left it and he said to his staff member, get on the next flight, go back, pick it up. I need it for today. I need it this evening, whatever's happening and he couldn't wait 24 hours without it. And the staff member said, no, I'm not because it led to my carbon footprint and the boss got angry. He said there'd be da the planes going anywhere, it won't do anything. They had this row and in anger uh the uh the boss dismissed him on the side. So that's it. Go home. I don't want to work for me and he took a case uh for unfair dismissal uh to an employment tribunal. And one because his belief about environmental concerns was sufficient to suggest that he was being unfairly treated. So uh interesting, all these things are, it's something to be uh very, very much aware of. So if somebody happens to suggest they're very much concerned with the, the natural environment and um uh would be concerned with uh uh following the lunar and the um solar uh phases, then if you're suggesting they're dance, dancing naked over bonfires in the wood. Well, uh it doesn't happen around here. Don't get advice to those sort of parties might happen in your world. But um be careful what you say. Ok, let's move it on. Um, now, clearly, I expect most people listening in would have got uh recognized uh race as being a uh a separate area and you can't discriminate on the basis of somebody's race and what a good thing that is too. And there is um uh uh precedence here where there's been um uh consideration of caste of social structure um within the Indian subcontinent. And that's been decided which Lord Chancellor, I have no idea whoever was decided that they don't need new legislation to deal with that that's already um dealt with under the um uh race, uh racial discrimination. So you can't discriminate on the basis of somebody's uh cast social standing if you will. Now this is one thing that does trip a number of people up because race is not a catch up. There are subsections of this that can influence uh discrimination. So you may not have got all of these but um uh they are subsets, they are individual protected characteristics, uh which will include, for example, skin color. Now, skin color does differ from race because there are those who are um mixed race, uh Barack Obama, um Lewis Hamilton, they have white mother, er, different white mother. Of course not. They they're not related. They have, uh they do have white mothers. Um And therefore some would argue that they aren't black enough to be called black. They are obviously mixed race. Um But skin color and I, I've done work in West Africa in both Nigeria and Namibia. I work with charities out there and there are some who would complain about mixed race. People describe themselves as being black because they clearly are. They say not me, they say their skin isn't dark enough to be included. So it does have to do with uh uh tones, color, skin color and so forth, which may uh bias some people's opinions. So skin color is the protected characteristic, which is a subset of race. Uh That's a therefore, you know, there's a debatable and argue, argue there and I know that um that's your job is to argue various things one way or the other, but just that's the way I was presented with it. Do remember it doesn't of course occur um As, as far as hair color was concerned. So if you are of a blonde haired persuasion and I said to you, you're having a blonde moment, then would that be discriminatory? Well, I think one would accept that that if you were female would be considered as a uh as a gender issue. Uh a blonde moment refers to blonde females, although some politicians and um one might argue have got blonde hair and seem to make a tremendous number of gaffes from time to time. Uh No names here on this one. Of course. Um I wouldn't want to be any scientist, but I think, I know, I think you might know some people who are male and very blonde and do make a few uh gaffs in that way. Um So somebody said that it doesn't actually occur. Um uh As far as hair color is concerned, somebody did say to me that Harry Potter was the work of complete fiction about what they were saying. And they said yes, how could a ginger kid have two friends? And I thought that was very rude. Um But apparently it's not uh that directly discriminatory on the basis of ginger. So be careful of that because my son is of a ginger persuasion and he plays uh Semiprofessional um rugby league and if you want to take him on good luck to you, so be careful of that one. Now, nationality, of course, is different from race. Uh You can't discriminate on the basis of somebody being uh a particular nationality and a pal of mine worked for a um a large American software company, not Microsoft and he was discriminated against because he was British by the people in the in Benelux in Belgium, Luxembourg, Holand and so forth who said they didn't want the brit on the board despite the fact that he could speak French fluently and Italian fluently. Uh because he is, in fact, um, half Italian. So he was discriminated against because he was British. They didn't want Brits on the board. And, uh, this was, you know, a few years ago, long before Brexit or anything like that. And he won a good case of being overlooked for promotion and, uh, being treated in that way. So, uh, getting a good employment lawyer worth their weight. So it's nationality, another subset of race, of course, is ethnicity, national origin. So, uh there are um various races who have an ethnicity and again, are referring to um the ethnicity of various groups within Africa. OK. That's more unusual. But let's uh uh take the ethnicity of being a traveler. Romany, for example, is Caucasian, but there's an ethnicity within that uh national origin again, is, is going to be a, a subset. So it's protected characteristic of what one's ethnicity and or national origin would be uh as a subset. Uh moving on uh protected characteristics. You cannot discriminate against somebody that is pregnant or was pregnant a mother or indeed somebody made somebody pregnant, uh their brothers outside the workplace, uh fathers and uh uh that's uh uh one catch or not separating out maternity and paternity in that area. You may not have got this one. You can't discriminate against people that are married or not in a social partnership or not. Um And uh that obviously has been developed and improved with um the acceptance of uh, uh, same gender marriages. And I did hear again from a delegate who said that that one year the memo went round an email that said if you're coming to the Christmas, do don't bring your partner if you're living in sin, this would upset the partner's wives. Clearly, that would be discriminatory. Ok. What's left? What, what else is there? Well, um, I hope you've remembered about the Dis Disability Act, about, uh, not discriminated against people by virtue of their physical and, or mental incapacity. And there's a bit of a spectrum between complete physical or complete mental. There's an overlap somewhere in between. So I'm not differentiating those two as separate subsets, uh put them together disability, whatever that form might be. And then finally, um uh you get a point for remembering it's uh uh you can't discriminate against people that have gone through a vote on Friday uh gender reassignment. And it is not as I heard a partner of a law firm say to me recently, what's all this gender realignment about? And I think I have to correct him as it. Now, I think you'll find it's reassignment and I have worked in um places where somebody's turned up for a training course one day, um dressed as Brian and the next day uh dressing as Brenda and it was the females in the training venue who were complaining about this uh behavior. And the training manager had to uh uh sort this out as far as the use of the, um, conveniences by this individual one day compared to the next. So, there we are, there's 13, well, uh, a point for each of those before we deal with your final scores. Let's just have a look at the, uh, the workplace activities. Now, I said full time, part time. Uh, you can't discriminate against people who only work three days a week compared with those who work full time. And I know that my Children when they were working during their um while at university to expand their, their beer money and other things, of course, they were paying for, um were quite surprised if they work hard uh and build up the hours during term time, they can actually go off to Ibiza for 22 months and still get holiday pay. They couldn't quite work this out and introduce them to the uh the Equality Act. So full time, part time workers. And this is important because if you have workers who only work Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and you keep having your social get togethers on a Friday, you are inadvertently discriminating against people who only work Monday to Wednesday. You have to be able to demonstrate you flex it even if you invite them. And now don't complain at me. I'm not a legislator, um fixed term contracts. So if somebody's on a two year training contract, then uh they must be treated uh in in a particular way. Um, there are certain periods of time that, uh, uh, define what is a fixed term contract. I am, uh, contracted very often by law firms on a so many days a week or so many days a month or what have you. But I'm never treated as an employee. Uh, uh, I, I work for a limited company and therefore I'm quite separate from that. But if you're involved in the construction industry and those sort of things, your clients are, then clearly you'll be much uh better versed in understanding those sorts of things as far as the, um uh whether somebody is an employee or a fixed term contractor, trade union membership. Now, then these are workplace activities. Somebody, uh you cannot oblige somebody to join the union that you want them to or discriminate against them because they're in another union uh and so forth. And if they are a recognized uh trade union uh officer, then he or she must be given uh appropriate amount of time off to conduct their various activities as a trade union member. So that's protected um, workplace activity. Um And these are in italics because this is something that is relatively new. Uh You can't discriminate against somebody who has got a particular affiliation to a political party provided. Again, that's a bona fide political party. And you might find it difficult to, um, uh if somebody was, uh wanting to uh be a member of screaming lord such party or, or some such. Well, what this refers to is whether anybody as a member outside of work can't be discriminated within work. Now, this does apply whether you are screaming lord such or a conservative labor, whatever that's provided, you're not using your, your political opinion or affiliation to persuade people and function for that party within the workplace because that's clearly not the appropriate. Where did it come from? It came from a situation where a chap worked for a local council uh county council. He was a driver delivering parcels between the various offices. He changed his job, got trained up and was driving people with um uh a new boss uh who was Bangladeshi of origin, his national origin was Bangladeshi. But the driver was a member of the British National Party and his boss, his new boss said we can't work for me as a signed up member of the British National Party. There's some conflict there and he refused to accept him as a new driver. And quite clearly, if you are a member of a bona fide um political party, whatever that party is provided, you keep those activities outside of work, you can't be discriminated within work on that particular basis. And that's really where the president has come from. Um The last one, which is a good thing. Again, I understand it came originally from whistleblowing within the health service. If you see bad practice and you mention it or you report it in some guys or another in appropriate fashion, then you can't be discriminated against because you are a whistle blower. It has since gone from the public sector, the NHS to other public sector bodies and now is uh much more mainstream. Um But again, it's a new area to be explored. So how did you get on? Well, those are the 18 areas. And remember it's a, a moveable feast and you may argue about the, the separation between one area and the next. Well, this is just what I am told. It's not my specialist area, but particularly the subsets of uh under the race. They are uh the core pieces of legislation, but we're looking at the protected characteristics. So one point for everyone you got, right, no points for ones you thought should be there. Um But are not there uh and minor too. And the minus two clearly is if you didn't know and nor did your staff know, then you do risk being um discriminatory without realizing it. And of course, it does apply to harassment and victimization at work. So being very aware of that and hence that, that scoring and I have to say it, uh it went challenged. I would struggle sometimes to remember all of them. But I think the um the, the the concept is there and the importance is there interestingly uh there are other things that have come up in discussion and debate about discrimination in the workplace, for example, uh tattoos and body piercings and uh so on and so forth. Now, what I have done in the notes is to provide further exploration of this and a little bit more background, a bit of added value if it's a particular area of concern for you that you'd like to explore, but personal appearance uh is a difficult one. It depends on the job, depends on the situation you're in and the type of work that people are doing. Um If you have a client facing function and you establish this as an appropriate uh with, with AAA policy on appearance and dress and, and so forth. Um, dress code, not wearing the dresses, I mean, dress code then perfectly reasonable that uh you can stipulate that people who choose to have a particular appearance. This came up for me when I was interviewing for a new secretary. My boss had lost his secretary, care of him. I know. Um But my secretary moved across to his department and I was recruiting new. I had gone through a recruitment agent, uh high street recruitment agency and they had sent CV S and they've got photographs attached to those. Some were pretty well reproduced photographs, but passport sized photographs and I interviewed somebody over the phone, brought them in for an interview, face to face to the office when she turned up, nothing like a photograph. She was very very punk one side of her head, the shade and the purple spikes the other side and she had facial piercings. Um I, she did actually interview extremely well, but when she, he left the office, um one of the other staff said I'm not having her sitting opposite me, etcetera. So I had a bit of a, you know, a quant here. Well, not really because of my job description required her to interface with other people in particular professional environment and it was agreed that she didn't represent the appropriate uh uh expectation of somebody fulfilling that role. Fortunately hr behind me and so on that this young person unbeknown to the recruitment agent was trying it on and getting some uh uh payments to uh not take up a case against the organization for discrimination at the point of recruitment. So uh interesting uh particular area there, what I think is worth doing. Uh And this again, I'd like you to think about and use for the internal conversation you might have uh is about using um uh some of the other case scenarios. Uh What I've done is to put some of these together, these are on page 20 five that we could have a look at to look at discrimination. Um Now Peter is non disabled, but his child is. What sort of discrimination is that? Um Second one, there's a choice uh a clause in your contract which says you may have to travel around the UK at short notice. Uh That's the second one to be the third one is that you, a colleague refuses to instruct a barrister because she believes the barrister to be gay. What sort of discrimination is that? And then finally, um a firm advertises for a senior solicitor's job uh requiring 10 years experience. Uh whereas uh an individual Noreen can't meet their requirement because she took a four year sabbatical and she's, uh, to care for her Children. So she's only got eight years experience. Now, what sort of discrimination is this again? Pause. Have a conversation. You may know immediately. Uh, what type of discrimination, uh, we're talking about here. Well, while Peter is non disabled, his child is that then is discrimination against the individual, uh, which is called as associate discrimination discrimination by association. And I do remember and it was a while ago now before I was married, my girlfriend was from the Punjab and my boss said do not bring, um, somebody like that to the Christmas party because somebody would get upset. Uh, that was quite a while ago and I couldn't believe it, but there we go. It happens. Clause in your contract say you have to travel around the UK. Is that discriminatory? Well, yes, it is. Um, it is indirect discrimination, not directly discriminatory, but it tends to just, um, uh, work against the principal carers of Children or elderly people, uh, which tends to be and I'm not suggesting it's exclusively. So it tends to be uh discriminatory indirectly against women who tend to have the lion's share of childcare duties. So it could be perceived to be discriminatory in that way. And I have uh another friend of mine who sadly is widowed with young Children. And uh he had an interview, somebody saying, well, you know, if you have to travel around the UK, who's gonna look after your Children. And he said, well, that's discriminate discriminatory um in that way. And it, it would have been, it could clearly be justifiable um for certain sorts of jobs as long as it's made clear and being treated in the appropriate fashion refuses to um subcontract work to a barrister. If uh one person believes this individual to be gay, then that is discrimination by perception. If I perceive this particular characteristic and um uh discriminator on that basis, then it doesn't actually have to be actual discrimination. It's just the perception and that is perception. Now again, when it comes to uh uh looking at um uh going for a senior role, is it discriminator against Noreen? Well, it is indirect discrimination um because she's been the carer, but this may be permissible if indeed um experiences an appropriate requirement. The question is to what degree is eight compared with, with uh um 10 years suff sufficient to be discriminate, it may be permissible. So it may be permissible to discriminate against somebody because they choose to um appear with uh uh facial tattoos and you need them in client facing functions and so forth. And there may be a dress code and provided that's established at the outset and provided it's the same for everybody then that is non discriminatory. So I hope there's some few thoughts and ideas there that give you opportunity to have the discussion internally with other people about those particular issues of discrimination. I think the last thing that's worth exploring is this thing between treating people equally or treating people fairly. And what's the difference between that? Well, if you treat people the same, then oddly, um that is treating people equally, but it isn't treating people fairly. And the way it was presented to me was from a district judge, district judge. I use this illustration here that says, well, if you've got three people looking over a fence trying to see a cricket game, then you give them all the same size box and the two taller people can see over the fence. But the uh uh the shorter child here is not being treated fairly to treat people equally, would not be fair. What is fair is here is that um the shorter individual is given a couple of boxes so that uh for the looks of things, probably he is able to see over the fence and that therefore is equity rather than just straightforward equity. So that treating people fairly, just treating people, the same isn't sufficient, but of course, better still with these to have no barriers. But why anybody would want to watch the game of cricket, particularly with the English because we haven't fared too well overseas against India and against Australia and so forth in test matches. But, um, well, that clear would be discriminatory on, on basis of, uh not liking people who are English wearing white clothes trying to play cricket. Ok. Enough of that tongue, Jake, let's move it on from there to explore issues to deal with being professional.

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Part 5

00:24:06

As always with these programs, I do provide further information within the workbook covering uh all of the topics that we've been speaking about. So don't forget to pursue that at your leisure. And I think the same applies when it comes to uh professionalism as well. It's a program about ethics and professionalism uh is obviously interlinked the way in which one behaves in a particular way. So we'll explore what's actually meant by professionalism, what the key characteristics are. And I think something that's gonna be useful for each individual watching this program is to think about your personal brand and how you put that across. So let's define professionalism. Well, clearly, professionalism means different things to different people without our dictionary definition. Um Qualities conduct, aims ethics, behaviors that characterize or mark out a profession or a professional person. It doesn't really explain what it is, but it may be. It's a described as a calling requiring specialist knowledge and often long and intensive academic preparation. Well, often it is and I, as you know, mentioned it before, deal with legal aid agency supervisors on the data law program and there I meet the people who've definitely got a calling. Uh They're not in it for the money. Clearly, they're there because they have a particular uh approach to giving access to justice for disadvantaged people in the community. So, uh professionals can be perceived in a variety of different ways. But essentially, I think anybody that is being paid to do a, a particular type of job can be qualified in some degree as being professional. If it is what you get paid for, to do your job, then I think you ought to be able to treat that in a professional way. And quite obviously, then professionalism isn't a single thing. It's a variety of things. Uh I have met professional bricklayers, I've met professional um surgeons. So we get different people with different skills. But it's basically is recognizing that somebody has particular uh skill sets, particular knowledge sets, particular attitudes, ethics approaches, some of which established by statute, as we've seen with regulations, some of which is established by particular set of behaviors coming from uh their core values, their attitudes, their beliefs, uh ultimately into the way in which they deal with people inside and outside of the firm. So it might be useful then to say, well, ok, if we get a rough idea what professionalism is, it's not something easily tied down with a simple one line definition. There are a number of different characteristics that you and I would probably recognize as being, well, this person behaving in this sort of way having these attributes is clearly uh a professional person. So understanding what it means to be professional. And for you as a uh if you are a qualified solicitor, then you have spent a lot of time studying a lot of time practicing your craft as a professional. And therefore that is good enough for me. But equally uh anybody working in a particular job also can be considered as being professional. And I think it's useful to draw that in not from a, a demographic point of view or some earnings point of view or what have you. But being professional is taking your job seriously and wanting to do a better job would be quite a good catch all. So with that in mind, what is the specialist knowledge required? Well, I have tried in the garden to lay bricks and I realize it's quite a specialist area, but there's degrees of specialism. I do think that uh that surgery uh in NHS or any other situation is actually quite specialist and you do need a lot of training to perfect your craft. Likewise, the practice of law, the practice of accountancy and so on and so forth, specialist knowledge. And we've already mentioned that there are those sort of customers out there who think they know best when it comes to buying conveyancing and therefore I can get that cheaper down the road thinking they're getting the same thing as the specialist services that you provide with your specialist knowledge, clients however know that you're the specialist and are willing to uh engage you in the appropriate way. But clearly within uh professions, plural, there is clear uh professional knowledge as well as the way in which those things are conducted. So the competency of applying that is more than just the knowledge itself as you will know, you may have met characters who are some of the best uh legal minds uh in the county. But they don't tend to make very good lawyers because their ability to deal with people and not get so bound up in the legal ramifications. But actually the practical application of it and the competency framework from the solicitor's regulation authority has given you a much broader perspective of the competencies that you would expect to have as a professional. And it's covering many, many more areas and those competencies as we have seen. The first, a one has to do with honesty, integrity and so forth and having that um uh particular ethos and approach to uh functioning in an ethical fashion. And I think we agree that most professionals would be perceived as being good to their profession and not misusing the position that their profession allows them to uh to, to raise themselves up above um lay public. Because after all, all the regulators that are looking at around the legal profession are there to protect the public because it, the professionals who should be able to look after themselves, honesty, integrity and so forth are very, very important. But going with that, of course, is the degree to which that is accountable. I will sort this out rather than it's not my fault. Well, yes, tough things happen. It's being, putting your hand up, taking accountability for your professional behavior rather than just leaving it to, um, some other body in that way. And I think what we discover and I'm sure you find this yourself that there are those, as I say, that technically are brilliant, but they're also very, very professional people in the way in which they deal with other people both internally within your firm or within uh organizations generally. And in terms of the way in which they deal with the public, the clients and so forth or indeed outsourcing and suppliers and so on. Now, it has been something he says, looking at my um bookshelf beside me are something to do with emotional intelligence. Now, it's a concept that's been around for a while. It was by Seth Golding. He was talking about um those characteristics who are over and above the performance of technical competence within a particular profession. And it wasn't uh intellectual quotient. The ability to learn the ability to manage things in an intellectual way is actually about being able to manage people, the emotions of people in a particular way. And he uh put it across uh pointing out five key characteristics of people who had high emotional intelligence and good professionals. I think as another dimension that might be worth exploring would be developing particular emotional intelligence. Now, I've got two or three books on my bookcase uh covering this. So when I'm looking at what, what parts of it do I pull out? Which parts do I put in to the workbook? Well, it's not for everybody. Some would just dismiss it and say, well, it's not actually that important as having good um communication skills and so on and so forth. The competencies of good communication are there within the competency framework from the sr A for example, but as you can see on screen, uh people with good emotional intelligence, if you like to consider emotional intelligence and the pursuit of that in a particular way, um will cover three areas to do with self self governance, being aware of your own limitations, your own emotions, being able to regulate those, not get, not get angry spirited, not to allow those things to get in the way of delivering good, proper standard of service and so forth. Um that self regulation and also the ability to be self motivated to deliver a proper standard of service to clients. So there's a a good link between emotional intelligence and the code. Manage your principles. Having the social skills, being able to engage with people, being able to talk with people to sympathize, to empathize, to understand where people are coming from and put people at ease and deal with their concerns and their anxieties of engaging you as a professional in your case, a professional in law. So those social skills are clearly an element to do with the professionalism in the practice of law and having all those skills are pretty well useless. Unless of course, you've also got good communication skills, which is uh not just about the saying, but also the listening. It's not what you say, it's what you listen, what you hear, what you understand and how you respond accordingly. So if you do want to explore that a bit more detail than I've just given you, then you're free to explore that uh later on uh to your own uh degree. But I think it's quite an interesting area of trying to develop and we run courses on emotional intelligence and so on. Keep your eyes open on the data to law portfolio. One of the other areas of course about professional is that you can see somebody who appears professional. I've taken this photograph here of somebody that appears professional. Um Now, image is quite important. Uh Of course, we do judge by what we see and uh sometimes we can't help but be judgmental on the basis of appearance. But professional appearance means that somebody has taken some attention to what they're doing and have presented themselves in a professional manner. Now, then it's quite interesting when we look at image and those sorts of things. Um And here, I'm sitting here without a tie um producing an online recording. Am I presenting myself sufficiently professionally? Because I'm not wearing a tie on this occasion? We'll come on to that when you look at personal brand in a moment. Um But then having all those things means very little unless you actually exhibit it. You uh not only talk the talk but also walk the walk using a cliche, you are polite in the way in which you are able to deliver your work and you have the tools that you need and also need them and use them in the right way. So that would pretty well encompass what one understands about what is a professional and what being professional means and some of the uh characteristics, the exhibited uh characteristics of somebody in a professional um position within a firm and delivering professionalism. One thing I think that is important and I, and I've included some notes on that uh to help the uh people in the professions. And I've dealt this by mentoring. As I mentioned, people through law school. I've run the PC and electives and so forth for data law. I get involved with uh helping young people quite a bit. And that is to think about your personal brand. So when you're looking at your personal brand, I think it's very important to recognize that how you come across as an individual face to face over the phone. And indeed how you write is all part and parcel of your personal brand. And I think the the article that I pulled out and you'll find that on page 35 is useful because it helps those uh uh excuse me being gender specific, but it is actually written by women for women in the workplace. And I think you may find that helpful to explore but also um guys as well as girls are gonna gain from thinking through some of the issues that are picked up here on professionalism and your personal brand. And I get this from uh getting involved as I mentioned in the PC. So having confidence. Now, how do you get confidence? I think confidence in the workplace is a very, very important part of it. One of the texts, one of the textbooks that I've written about motivation, ability and confidence building in the workplace, a whole section, there is about how to build your own confidence as well as as a manager, how you can help build confidence in other people. So having personal confidence is of course a very important element to have confident, communications, confident in how one approaches. And when one comes across with others in those three media of writing, phone or face to face, having that little bit of confidence, the right amount of confidence we know the cocky. So and so's who appear over confident and they're not able to substantiate that shatter that um persona very quickly when they're found out. So the overconfidence are not good. The UN the lacking in confidence tend also to have one or two of those particular problems. So it's finding that happy balance of that, where does that confidence come from? Confidence comes from knowing your stuff. How do you know your stuff? Well, you've clearly not got learning difficulties, particularly as a qualified uh practitioner. You're studying continuing that CPD journey to have confidence in what you're doing. And uh looking people in the eye face to face, getting those communications across are an important part of that confidence. And I think too that comes not only from having that confident appearance, but also confidence in communications, being able to back up what you're saying uh and do that in a professional manner using some of the precepts of, for example, um good uh emotional intelligence, having good confidence. There have a look at the programs that we've done with data law on uh uh writing clear legal writing, having confidence to express yourself well, uh and put back up the things that you are saying. And I think too, and we know this when we meet people and I see this when people walk into a training room and having something called gravitas, um be able to look people in the eye, be able to put it across in an appropriate fashion. And with that gravitas of course, comes uh appearance and ok, I'm sitting here without a tie. I don't know what you think about me being here without a tie because I'm sitting in an office doing some online recording. But I have to say, you know, I, I know the fashion today is to appear without a tie, but I do find that putting a tie on, changes my neck up, check up the way I think and behave changes when I put a tie on, go out to work. So, if I was visiting another firm, I think it's fair to say, I don't think I've ever gone out, um, in all of my working life to a business to business situation, uh, accepting that the dress code was professional and therefore, as a bloke, I would tend to wear a tie and I know a lot of people don't. Um, but for me not wearing a tie is much more relaxed and my father, completely different generation, he could not understand why I didn't wear a tie going to the office. Well, if I'm not out and about and I would tend to, uh, not to wear a tie in the office. So, yes, dressed down days and so on and so forth. That doesn't mean to say that you need to spend �300 on a suit, um, to go in that, uh, professional presentation to create the gravitas when you walk in. But I think being well groomed, uh, is something that we all recognize as being something that's, uh appropriate for an individual's personal brand. Now, I think that us guys because we wear suits and ties or jackets and ties, um, will find it much easier to decide what colors we will wear colors of suits. But when everyone else is wearing black or blue or gray, something like that, it's very difficult to step too far outside those particular parameters. And I know because I've worked in different sectors. Um when I was in pharmaceuticals, dealing with hospital doctors, dealing with um GPS and practitioners, dealing with veterinary pharmaceuticals and so forth. And indeed, in one of my jobs was to look into animal health. So I was dealing with farmers and so forth and uh farm merchants and so on and what I recognized as far as the parents was concerned that having the appropriate clothing for the appropriate situation. Ok. So if you are in agricultural law, you will know that pitching up in a three piece pinstripe is probably not the best thing from that point of view. So matching what is required, I've worked and advertising agencies. Uh and I was always uh myself and other account managers, account directors were always seem to be the business people because we were in business attire. And by that, I mean, both ladies as well as the gentleman in business attire. And I think ladies take the information that's in the article because it's written by women for women. But it is in my experience, particularly I dealing in one situation with presentation skills. And somebody there said that they were doing presentations to a group of, uh, engineers and they said, uh, she said she continued to be heckled and she wondered what she would do about it. And I, I did stop and think to myself very carefully of all the things that you have in your wardrobe. Why did you choose? I thought to have to wear what she was wearing. Very short dress, plunging neckline. And uh I kid you not, she was wearing um fishnet stockings. Now there's absolutely nothing wrong with what anybody chooses to wear at work. I don't think there's anything wrong that there shouldn't be. And we've covered a lot about discrimination in the workplace. There shouldn't be um un inappropriate comments or sexist comments and so forth and she has every right to wear what she chooses to wear. But she must ask herself whether or not that was the best choice to make and whether or not she has any contribution to improving the way in which she comes across with people. Um So have a look at the information there. Um have a look at the approach they're taking to um these four areas of confidence, communications, having the gravitas and the appearance that's appropriate for you in the environments in which you are. So whether that has to, to do with um body piercings, whether it has to do with um tattoos, whether it has to do with clothing, the degree to which that is revealing and so forth, think it through and that becomes part and parcel of who you are and what you are in a professional situation. And I think too, the last thing to comment here is about um personal brand for solicitors is as the code will say, you won't take advantage of somebody uh whether you are inside working hours or outside of working hours because you're a solicitor and they're not so not to use those sorts of things to your own. Personal advantage is in that code of conduct there. Think about your behavior inside and outside of work, social events and so forth, uh become very, very important as well as your personal brand comes across. So I hope that's been useful. Uh It's been an absolute delight to look at this and we can just stop and think now before we finish this program, to think about what you are going to be your takeaways, what things you're going to do as a consequence of this. I hope that the notes and ideas that you've taken as the program has unfolded uh help you, but I'm just gonna take a couple of minutes just to review what we've done and remind you of some of the things that you might might want to take on board as a takeaway. So we've thought about the term ethics and professionalism. From a personal point of view, a departmental point of view, your corporate point of view. I understand those terms and we're thinking about the policies and systems and procedures that we adopt from the firm and expect people to live up to those things and communicate them uh, within the working context. We've given you a basis to assess yourself against the sras competency standard for uh a one, the ethical standards and added within that some other things over and above the list there. And you've got eight areas to look at. And unless you're doing all these things all the time and got a handle on that, then there may be areas that you want to improve. You may want to share that with others so that others can start the dialogue within the firm, the department about ethical behavior and what it means in terms of differentiating your firm as a brand from others. So we've explored key aspects of the code, particularly of the uh eight mandatory principles. And we have explored how they might affect by be affected by some of the support staff. And therefore there's an opportunity again for internal dialogue, one of which is equality, diversity in the workplace. We've explored the 13 protected characteristics um had a in some respects, a lighthearted view of those, but nonetheless, I hope that was useful to explore what's going on and whether that uh has given you some thoughts and ideas about sharing that again amongst your people to make sure everybody's familiar with what's going on, what it means. Er, not only in terms of direct discrimination but indirect discrimination by association and so on. And also it may have, um, opened up a thought line about the five workplace activities where you may not discriminate, thinking about union work or member of bona fide um uh political parties and the actions that are going on there uh are are also very important. We're looking at the difference again between equally and fairly and that needs to be understood. It's not just the personal protective characteristics or work activities. It's a little bit beyond that. We've also explored professionalism, we've explored the characteristics of professionalism and there are a few things there that you might want to explore a little bit further, like for example, emotional intelligence, if you find that interesting, um therefore that completes what we've done in terms of ethics and professionalism. Um You've got my contact details there. If you want to contact me about any of the technical content, observations on that, then obviously, you've also got the data law uh context that you've already got uh with any technical queries. You've got, I hope you find the workbook useful. I hope you found this program useful. And if I've made a small impact on improving the ethics professionalism for you as a person, as an individual working within the profession, then I'm very very content. So thanks very much and good luck with everything that you're trying to do. Bye bye for now.

Documentation

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37 Pages

KeyWords

ethics, professionalism, ethics and professionalism, professionalism and ethics, work ethics and professionalism, ethics in the workplace, SRA, SRA Code of Conduct, code of conduct, solicitors, solicitors code of conduct, code of ethics, professional conduct in the workplace

Instructor

Mac Mackay

Mac Mackay

3673 Users
41 Courses
143 Reviews

BSc(Hons) DipM MCIM PCertM CMgr MCMI MBA

Mac has a wealth of practical management experience running his own successful consultancy practice, and has been a popular lead speaker on the Datalaw SRA Management Course Stage One and Two.

He is author of Motivation, Ability & Confidence Building in People and Recruiting, Retaining & Releasing People both published by Butterworth Heinemann (2007). Mac is also a Chartered Manager and a qualified sports coach.

Reviews

Alima Maxsood 2 years ago

Simon fonkwa 6 years ago

Course Instructor commanded good knowledge of the key areas. His presentation skills helped me to understand into details what is required not only by the SRA but by clients and colleagues as well.

henry igbinedion 6 years ago

vevry lucid, clear and illuminating

Suzanne Ludlow 6 years ago

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