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.