Professional Ethics and Practice Awareness
What is tested
Your understanding of the duties a barrister owes and to whom. The central framework: duties to the court and the administration of justice override duties to the client; duties to the client include competence, loyalty, confidentiality, and avoiding conflicts of interest; and the profession's regulatory obligations concern honesty, courtesy, and the reputation of the profession.
Concepts to know
Understand the cab-rank rule and its exceptions (where the brief is beyond competence, involves a conflict, or the fee is unacceptable); the duty to act honestly and not mislead the court, including correcting an error the court has acted on; the duty to inform the client of settlement offers and to act on instructions; confidentiality versus legal professional privilege; the handling of a client's money and trust obligations; and the boundary between advocacy and personal opinion. Know that a barrister must not assert personal knowledge of disputed facts, must not misstate the law, and must decline to advance a submission that is knowingly false.
Traps
Questions often present a plausible client-serving option that breaches a duty to the court, or a duty-to-court option that needlessly harms the client. The correct answer satisfies both duties where possible and prioritises the court where they genuinely conflict. Watch also for: assuming confidentiality ends when the retainer ends (it does not); treating a conflict waiver as effective where the client cannot give informed consent; and confusing the duty to decline a brief with a discretion to do so.
Rule of thumb
When duties collide, ask: does the proposed course require misleading the court or a third party? If yes, it is impermissible regardless of instructions. If no, seek the course that best protects the client's interests within the law.
Worked example
A client instructs counsel to run a defence the client privately admits is false. Counsel cannot advance a knowingly false case, but may require the prosecution to prove its case and may test the evidence. The answer is the option permitting rigorous testing of the prosecution case while declining to assert the client's account as true.
Practice awareness
Know the difference between conduct that is unethical and conduct that is merely unwise; questions ask about the former.