Mr Bates vs The Post Office

Sir Wyn observed yesterday that it was stretching the point that lawyers writing to lawyers didn't know what they were saying.

"Here is photo of you standing over the murder victim holding a bloody knife" Can you explain this to us? "No, but that's not what it looks like."

Probably give what is known as the "shaggy defence" (not the Scooby Doo & Shaggy).

I'm not one of the legal bods who tends to share advice on PH (at least not that identifies me as a lawyer), but I am the general counsel of a large UK business.

If I'm honest, I look on with a degree of "there but for the grace of god". Which sounds like all lawyers - especially in-house lawyers - are up to no good. Let me explain:

As an in-house lawyer, you live in a permanently imperfect world: you have one client who is also your employer. You are an officer of the court (to whom you owe your primary responsibility) but you work in an organisation who employs you to get deliver its interests. You therefore have to oscillate rapidly between making good decisions for the business, remaining objective and meeting your professional obligations. It's even more complicated if you are also the company secretary (in-house counsel advise the business, co sec advises the board). I can think of few other roles that require so much intellectual separation to take place at once.

And that assumes you live in a perfect world where everyone you work with and for is only acting in the best interests of everyone at all times. Anyone who has had a job at whatever level in a business knows that all organisations are highly imperfect.

I have previously said that this is the largest corporate governance failure I have seen in my working life. It is a salutary tale for all in-house lawyers to think carefully about how they position their roles within the businesses they work for. Unlike finance and HR functions which are prevalent across organisations of all sizes, it remains unusual for all but decent sized organisations to have in-house legal functions. This creates a difficult environment as the legal team is expected to solve how it manages the "air gap" between taking an objective view and executing management decisions. Legal departments are regularly described as "blockers" to getting things done and are always require to demonstrate how we are proactive business partners - rather oddly I have always felt compelled to sell myself as someone who gets things done, as if that makes me special as a lawyer....

Couple that with a poorly managed organisation as the Post Office clearly was, together with an evidently toxic culture of blame and lack of accountability, and you can see that the lawyers - while clearly not innocent lambs (as much as Jarnail Singh wanted to paint himself as that) - are also playing a complex role while walking a near impossible tightrope.

The law is a tool - it isn't objectively pure when put into practice - and it is utilised to deliver a series of aims. Only as we have all looked in can we see that, step by step the legal functions within POL have increasingly lost objectivity. Rather like sensible people slowly getting drawn into a cult and failing to see the reality of what's going on around them.

I don't feel sorry for any of the lawyers at POL (even those who are still there and I know are desperately trying to leave), but I can see how they have all participated in their own falls from grace.

Interesting perspective, thanks.

So this is where the interplay of moral compass (personal, inward facing) and professional obligations (external, outward facing) collide.

Susan Crichton (the GC on the stand last week/week before) saw an issue and she resigned over it. Chris Aujard - who was GC at the significant times that this issues were coming to light within POL - appeared to be too far in the bunker. I know of at least two GCs who, having uncovered wrongdoing that the remaining leaders did not want to change (or, in one case, were actively pursuing), resigned with no job to go to. I resigned from a role (also with nothing to go to), not because of wrongdoing, but because of a toxic culture that started with my boss (CEO) and permeated throughout.

The real issue for me in POL is the kryptonite combination (1) attitude that postmasters will steal from you if given the chance - culture eats strategy etc. (2) in-house ability to prosecute - losing the necessary objectivity (3) leadership failure from the chair through the board into the exec and senior management and (4) a public sector mindset of driving the organisational agenda first and considering people and wider impact second.

You can see also that the likes of Singh who clearly started out as incompetent and doubled down from there didn't see the full picture. He might have had suspicions at Horizon, but probably lost no sleep as he figured out the exec and the board had the full picture and knew what they were doing. I often think the "only following orders" mindset is one of self-preservation. Which means people then sleepwalk us into disasters like this.

The lawyers are both contributors and collateral damage at the same time.

A related thought (as I can't follow the hearings every day) - has there been any reference to whistleblowing? Would love to know what the whistleblowing policy said about how to raise a concern and who would deal with it....

A good post.

"who clearly started out as incompetent and doubled down" - a dinosaur who didn't know how to save or print documents in 2010 when teh rest of the world had mastered it - at a guess his PA was allowed to either guide him, or he just passed his keyboard and mouse to her. It was clearly from his Outlook cache.

I chose to avoid the TV expose, and don't watch the court proceedings - would likely leave me feeling angry and impotent. But the discussion on here is riveting. So many insights, and in particular the GC in a big org; OMITN - exploring the almost impossible divided loyalty of ket roles.

As an outsider what worries me is that the law does not merit the term 'profession'.
The concept of disclosure is that the Court has access to a body of verifiable common information, provided by whatever legal party, in order to let the legal system work.

A common theme in the Inquiry is that the adversaries on the POL side saw no such obligation, or if they did recognise their professional obligations, it was of no relevance to their job. (as hired guns).

Am I being childlike or naive when I say that this is not a career that can be called a 'profession'?

& this one . . . enjoying watching him squirm in his seat

The classic example of sending an unarmed man into a battle of wits.