SRA Principles and ethical duties — SQE1 Legal services question
A worked single-best-answer question on sra principles and ethical duties, with why each wrong option is wrong — the way SQE1 traps candidates.
Lucas, a solicitor, acts for Kestrel Ltd, the defendant in a High Court contract claim. Kestrel's managing director tells Lucas that the company needs another six months before it can pay any judgment. He instructs Lucas to apply to strike out the claim on a ground that Lucas has told him has no realistic prospect of success, purely to delay the trial. The managing director says that acting in the client's best interests means following these instructions.
How should Lucas respond to these instructions?
- AHe must follow them, because acting in the best interests of each client is the overriding SRA Principle.
- BHe may follow them, provided the managing director gives informed consent in writing to the risks of the application.
- CHe must follow them but should record his reservations on the file so that he can justify his conduct to the SRA.
- DHe must refuse to make the application, because where the Principles conflict those protecting the wider public interest prevail, and he may make only properly arguable submissions to the court.
- EHe must refuse and must immediately report the managing director to the SRA as a serious breach of its regulatory arrangements.
Show answer and reasoning
Rule: Where the SRA Principles conflict, those safeguarding the wider public interest take precedence over a client's interests, and a solicitor may make only properly arguable submissions.
- A Principle 7 does not override the others; the public interest Principles prevail where there is a conflict. (wrong rule)
- B A client's consent cannot authorise a solicitor to breach duties owed to the court. (wrong rule)
- C Recording reservations does not cure a breach of paragraphs 2.4 and 2.6 of the Code. (wrong rule)
- E The managing director is not regulated by the SRA, so there is nothing to report under paragraph 7.7; Lucas must simply refuse. (right rule, wrong facts)
Source: SRA Principles 2019 (introduction, Principles 1 and 7); SRA Code of Conduct for Solicitors, RELs and RFLs, paras 2.4 and 2.6