Prohibition Approach To Conflict Of Interest In The Legal Profession

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The current position of how conflict of interest operates in the legal profession, is under scrutiny. If the current position is removed and instead adopt a strict rule based approach there a questions that arise to whether it would be suitable, how would anyone monitor if lawyers deal with conflict of interest situations appropriately or even act in way that is an direct conflict of interest to themselves or another client. The current method can be deemed suitable in governing the ethics of conflict of interest as it much simpler and clearer to have standards that prevent lawyers getting into situation of conflict of interest rather than having a penalisation system for when they break the standards. Furthering this public perception of lawyers in imperative the application of the rule of law and the current prohibition approach to conflict of interest means that lawyers are seen as above reproach with no hint that lawyers are not putting their interest anything less than first .

The rules that govern the ethical ideas of conflict of interest are centred around avoidance rather than the prohibition of acting where there is a conflict of interest, however I …show more content…

These professional codes of conducts make the assumptions about the way that rules operate in order to govern lawyers behaviours. These broad codes and principles appear to have the benefit of being shaped at a local level in order to suit the diverse needs of the legal profession. A consequence of this is that unless there codes have strict and specific rules they are unlikely to have any direct effect on lawyers. Furthering this some of the codes become so abstract that instead of operating as compulsory duties they become virtues that need to be installed in to every lawyer that they then adapt to each scenario the legal profession