Originally published on Legal Prospects
The scale of City workers pay and the ethics of modern capitalism is a hot topic at the moment which we have been monitoring closely. While protesters have been camped outside St. Paul’s Cathedral for over a month now, demonstrating against corporate greed, a report released by St. Paul’s Institute has revealed that 75% of respondents agreed that there is too great a gap between the rich and the poor in the UK.
The survey ‘Value & Values: Perceptions of ethics in the City today’ found that 66% of respondents felt that City Bankers – and the lawyers that work for them – are paid too much adding to the perception that capitalism is synonymous with greed. With the debate heating up in relation to the balance of business and ethics – is it now time for the legal profession to start tackling this issue?
The English legal profession has moved a long way from the public perception captured by Charles Dickens in Bleak House. However the pace of change has been slow. Should lawyers now be looking at more ethical ways to approach business and question decisions further instead of focusing on monetary gain? While there are obviously regulatory bodies in place, such as the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) and the Bar Standards Board to monitor lawyers, more needs to done to help improve the ethics and perception of the profession. Read the rest of this entry ?
