This is a short post with only or or two questions for you to ponder, especially if you are a lawyer.
It was one of those days in the Post Office Story. A day of revelations but one stand out moment of awfulness. Back in 2016 a newly qualified it seems) solicitor poured herself a cup of ambition and set about writing an email to one of her team’s clients.
Now I only picked up bits of the evidence yesterday and have read reports (the transcripts were not available overnight) but as I understand it the email was written with the solicitors’ supervising partner (this piece suggests he may have reviewed and amended it) and as many, including Peter Griffiths on X said:
Don’t be too quick to judge Amy – I know why you did, my instinct as well but she was 1 year qualified, inexperienced and whilst she should have known better the real blame lies with the supervising partner. She shouldn’t have been anywhere near in a position to send that email.
I don’t want to get into the blame bit yet. We don’t know enough. But the questions are obvious and serious.
I want to think about culture for a minute and ask the question, how does this make you feel? What does this say about the culture in this firm? Is it a culture more prevalent in practice than is admitted?
I was watching Mr Williams give his evidence and noticing the circumlocution, the obscure and mechanical language, the praying in aid of managerial hieroglyphs like risk in ways as he groped for justifications that often did not appear to be there.
I have seen this kind of language reasonably often, when discussing ethical conundrums with groups of lawyers groping for some explanation that can mean one of their brethren has not done something wrong. It’s sometimes sinister; it’s sometimes not at all sinister. It nearly always (when it happens) reveals a lack of clear thinking about what professional rules and propriety demands.
These moments keep occurring in the Post Office Inquiry. Across the years, in the Post Office and outside it. Junior lawyers and (so far) more senior. The feeling I have each time is a really odd one. Another piece of evidence drops into view, the frisson of another possible gotcha, does it mean what it appears to? The cogs whirr and a feeling hoves into view which, silly as it seems, feels like the opening to, Here you come again.
Other reactions have been more visceral. Anger not anguish. And the most interesting, and in some ways concerning of all; the thing I find most surprising, some have said, is that they thought it was okay to write this down.