Professional Ethics, Conduct and Regulatory Obligations
This domain tests whether you can apply the regulatory framework governing advocates to realistic pressure points: competing duties, confidential information, conflicts of interest, undertakings, client money and the disciplinary consequences of getting it wrong. Questions are scenario-based, and the marks turn on identifying which duty governs, and why, rather than on reciting a code from memory.
The hierarchy of duties
- Duty to the court and the administration of justice prevails over every other duty.
- Duty to the client comes next: competence, loyalty, confidentiality and acting on instructions.
- Duties to third parties and to the profession sit alongside, not beneath.
- Self-interest - fees, reputation, future instructions - ranks last.
Core obligations
- Candour. Never mislead the court by statement, omission or the way evidence is presented; cite authority against your own case; correct an error as soon as you notice it, even where it damages the client.
- Confidentiality and privilege. Confidentiality survives the end of the retainer and the client's death. Exceptions are narrow: client consent, a statutory override, and disclosure necessary to prevent serious crime.
- Conflicts. Separate the own-interest conflict, the two-current-clients conflict and the former-client conflict. Information barriers can protect confidential information but do not cure a loyalty conflict; informed consent is normally required, and sometimes consent is unavailable altogether.
- Undertakings. Personal and binding on the advocate, not on the client. If the client fails to fund what you promised, you still perform.
- Client money. Held in a designated account, never mixed with office funds, accounted for promptly and refunded when due.
Worked example
Mid-trial, an advocate discovers that a witness her side called gave evidence inconsistent with a document she holds, and that correcting the record will damage her client. Reasoning: the duty of candour requires the court not to be left with a misleading impression, so the document must be produced. But the advocate first advises the client to correct the evidence voluntarily; if the client refuses, she may apply to withdraw rather than continue presenting a false case. She does not secretly reveal privileged instructions - she corrects the record and steps back from the misstatement. The mark comes from identifying that candour and confidentiality are reconciled by withdrawal, not by choosing one and discarding the other.
Traps that cost marks
- Assuming confidentiality ends when the retainer ends.
- Believing a Chinese wall alone solves a former-client conflict.
- Treating an undertaking as conditional on client funding.
- Failing to state which duty prevails and why.
- Describing the disciplinary process instead of resolving the dilemma.