By Linden Barnes -
This, alas, is what Paul Monaghan and I hear far too often from callers to our Ethics Hotline. “Being difficult” might be a delay in responding, a personal attack on you that has no relevance, or maybe lying to the Court about you.
What is so heartening about these calls is that you are being the best of professional colleagues. You are trying to sort it out without doing the dreaded “dob in”. With a bit of support from us, you may be able to talk to the other solicitor and resolve the issue. The best result for sure.
However, it may become clear that the other solicitor needs help. They may be struggling with professional or personal pressures, or both. That’s where the Society has various support options. There is the Outreach Service – free psychologist help 24/7. Perhaps they need one of our external interventions solicitors to call them and see what might be done to ease pressures and avert needing intervention. Or you might do a mental health first aid course at the Society so you can feel better equipped to support them to get the support they need.
The last option – the regulatory one. Always keep Rule 32 and the Society’s policy about solicitors’ complaints against fellow solicitors in mind (and don’t even contemplate using a complaint as a tactic). Both underline that this should be the last option, used only in rare and unfortunate circumstances. It really is a sign of failure of our profession to have no other solution. Is the other solicitor not being given proper supervision and mentoring by the rest of us? I carefully put that in the present tense because it is a career-long process and the responsibility of us all to be the official and unofficial supervisors and mentors of our colleagues.
Yes, it is much easier, in the short term, to hand that solicitor over to the regulator. But the long term will be much harder for us all.
So just make sure the Ethics Hotline is top of your speed dial. Then we can support you as you support the profession in the best possible way.
