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Published: 05/09/2008 11:52
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I thought being anti-nuclear was mainly about weaponry, not power - perhaps I'm way off base. Still, it seems a slightly strong reaction and if you're that sensitively-minded life may prove difficult within a commercial law firm.
Posted on: 05 Sep 2008
I've had the same issue when being asked to act for a tobacco client. Didn't like it at all but swallowed it - it's what I was being paid to do. If you can't swallow it, go and work somewhere more ethical - which may well mean outside the law. Even charities can carry out activities which others feel are unethical, such as animal testing for medicines for example. You need to choose your next employer carefully. And you can be anti-nuclear power as well as anti-nuclear weapons. Many people feel it is dangerous and therefore renewable sources such as wind farms should be explored instead. But others feel wind farms harm the environment too.
Posted by: Helen on 05 Sep 2008
No problem. If it helps to ease your conscience, work out how much of your work is nuclear-related and then take an equivalent percentage of your salary and donate it to a carbon offsetting project (buying bits of equatorial rain forest is quite popular, or support Suffolk/Norfolk coastal towns which are threatened with rising sea levels...) I applaud the ideas that prompt your thoughts, but I really have to say it smacks of undergrad wishy-washy nonsense. Where do you stand on finite fuels; the cost of which is contributing to financial misery for the many who do not have the luxury of your salary? On your job application was there a multiple choice section for you to state your preferred areas of work? At the end of the day you are a resource of your employer and they have every right to expect you to do any work that is legal and reasonable in the context of your employment. If you find nuclear power that objectionable, perhaps rather than making a small and unseen stand at work, you might have more impact if you lobby your MP and explore more of your time to promoting alternative sources.
Posted by: JasonB, Headhunter on 05 Sep 2008
Many of the country's power plants are due for decommissioning in the next 15 years. The industry is not yet in a position to replace them all with renewable sources. Given the ongoing energy demands of the country, the choices are therefore to replace fossil fuel-fired power stations with modern equivalents, or to replace them with nuclear powered plants, which are 'clean', efficient and very safe (more so than non-nuclear, simply because of the risks). Which option would you choose? Personally, I chose to work for a firm developing renewable energy sources, but if that isn't an option, surely nuclear is the lesser of two evils? I think you need to just get on with it - it's your job, if you plan to stay there...
Posted on: 05 Sep 2008
By refusing to do the work you aren't going to prevent the firm from working for the client and you won't have done anything at all to make a difference. All you will succeed in doing is annoying your work colleagues and potentially causing them to overlook you for work in the future. Just get on with it.
Posted on: 05 Sep 2008
Totally agree with Jason. If you're not dead set against it, out and proud and protesting all the way, then you're tacitly encouraging it. If your principles really are that strong, you need to leave your current firm and the law and go to work for someone else - although where you'd find anyone as morally rigid as you sound outside the Catholic church I don't know. Throughout life as commercial lawyers we are confronted by things we don't really like, but have to accept if we want to keep our jobs, salaries, mortgages and lifestyles. If it is not this issue, it will be another client - perhaps someone who owns a string of pubs, or makes gas-guzzling 4x4s, or wears fur coats, or produces powdered baby milk etc etc. You cannot be a commercial lawyer and represent only clients you approve of morally and ethically - if you've not learned that by now this is clearly a good lesson for you and other Ally McBeals out there. Besides - where do you draw the line - will you be asking all your clients a series of ethical questions to gauge whether they are moral enough for you before you start acting? You need to decide whether you're prepared to sell your skills to the highest bidder, enjoy the City lifestyle and experience and leave your fairtrade principles at home, or whether you want to work for a small high-street practice using only hand-made paper and not having access to the internet or electric lighting (you can't be too sure how they were produced - if not as a result of nasty nuclear power then surely by gobbling up earth's precious fossil resources). Try to change the system if you want: you won't be earning a big salary any more but you'll have satisfying work to do. But if you decide to do nothing - you cannot take such a stance without damaging your career prospects.
Posted on: 05 Sep 2008
Try growing a Marxist-style beard. This will mark you out as a leftie and any of your emotionally intelligent colleagues will simply assume you would have an objection to working on nuclear deals.
Posted by: PE Executive on 05 Sep 2008
If you refuse to do something legal for a client of the firm, you can kiss your prospects goodbye. It's as simple as that. However, you could share your views and say that whilst of course you will do whatever the firm needs, you would be uncomfortable and would appreciate it if wherever practicable you were assigned to other projects. They may accommodate your wishes, and if they don't, you will at least get the credit for going the extra mile for the firm and making a personal sacrifice.
Posted by: US Partner on 05 Sep 2008
It's fine for you to refuse to undertake the work providing your refusal consists of resignation from the firm and from law. You are a lawyer, your job is to represent and provide legal advice to your clients irrespective of whether or not you like their business. It's similar to a doctor who can't withold treatment because he doesn't agree with his patient's morals. If you don't think everyone is entitled to receive advice and have legal representation then why did you pursue a career in law?
Posted on: 05 Sep 2008
You can either do your job for your client as you are paid to do to the best of your ability or go to a firm that doesn't have a client base you disapprove of. You don't have the right to do your job badly or lie to your employer to avoid work you disapprove of. You can tell the firm of your views and they may generously choose to put you on other deals - and if they choose not to, you have to grin and bear it or leave. You are being paid to do a job and the various comments made about lawyer's duties to clients stand. No-one makes you work at a firm that has clients you disapprove of, so if you don't like your firm's client base, leave and go elsewhere. You must, however, never compromise your professional standard. In my opinion, it would set a terrible precedent for a firm to pander to an associate's political/ethical beliefs as to which clients to act staff with them - how could you then justify ignoring the political/ethical beliefs of other associates? What if an associate doesn't approve of busineses owned by black people? What if a muslim associate doesn't want to work for Israeli clients or a Jewish associate doesn't want to work for Arab clients? This is a terrible can of worms you are asking your firm to open.
Posted by: Magic Circle Associate on 06 Sep 2008
So the preference is to keep coal/oil stations online (and spewing carbon) instead of moving to nuclear energy? It's fine to standby your principles, but your firm is paying you your current salary to do work that is required of a junior at your level. If you are not able to work on certain areas when it falls directly within your lap, You are basically dodging work and adding what should have been your workload to your colleagues' workload.
Posted on: 08 Sep 2008
I'm not sure why the reactions on here have been so strong. I don't see it as an unreasonable position to state a preference not to work with certain types of client (tobacco for me) and most firms worth working for would be understanding (mine is). That said, you need to broach the subject in a suitably deferential way, and your request may be received less tolerantly in a downturn. I don't see that you are necessarily putting work onto your colleagues - there's hopefully enough work flying around that something else will hit you if your numbers are down, unless you are suggesting that nuclear is exclusively where your practice is presently headed. In short, only US partner above appears to me to offer sound advice, everyone else seems to buy into the lawyer=prostitute ethos, or just come out with the macho 'principles are for wimps' nonsense. I find this a little sad, but bear in mind some of your colleagues may think like the posters above. Personally, I'm not anti-nuclear, but I do think you are entitled to have views (too many though and you may find it difficult to make your numbers, so pick them carefully).
Posted by: MC associate on 09 Sep 2008
Thank you MC Associate. One does one's best!
Posted by: US Partner on 10 Sep 2008
It is a fundamental principle at the Bar that you act for your clients, whether you agree with them or whether you like them or not. It should be no different for you. If you are unable to divorce your feelings from your obligation to act in a client's best interests, then you should find another profession - never mind another firm.
Posted by: Barrister, London on 10 Sep 2008
I find it quite amusing that a barrister should post a comment about the Bar having fundamental principles of acting in a client's best interest, when The Times is leading with an article of barristers holding the criminal system to ransom over fees. And at the risk of sounding cliche, the 'just following orders' line taken by many posters here was pretty similar to the line taken by those arrested after the Second World War. It is perfectly possible to be a lawyer and not work against your principles, and the suggestion that you cannot is, in my opinion, the reason that the legal profession has such a bad reputation.
Posted by: Old boy on 11 Sep 2008
Agreed Barrister, but isn't the point here avoiding acting in the first place rather than taking them on and not acting in their best interests? Just because the firm acts doesn't mean the individual lawyer has to also act on that file - though granted there is a professionalism that should be maintained with respect to clients of the firm even where you don't act, e.g. going off climbing the chimneys of a power station belonging to a client may not endear you to your boss... Even barristers are supposed to have principles and court duties that override their client's perceived best interests - e.g. not entering a not guilty plea for a client who tells you he is guilty but wants to plead not guilty.
Posted by: MC associate on 11 Sep 2008
Old boy, you appear to be confused by the above posts. The posters are not suggesting that a solicitor should 'blindfully follow rules' like many purpoted to have done after WWII. Indeed the analogy you draw is quite ironic. A barrister cannot decide not to defend someone on personal grounds because it is not a barrister's role to judge: it is the judge (for points of law) and the jury (for points of fact). If individuals were allowed to confuse roles then we would be living in a gestapo state where a single person could be judge, juror and executioner. If, as a lawyer, you are faced with a dilemma whereby what you are asked to do is perfectly legal but rubs against your morals, then nobody above is suggesting you bury your head in the sand. It is up to you to exercise judgement; however, the two options you should consider are to act or to resign from law. Otherwise you have effectively become the judge, juror and executioner. In the case of nuclear power I understand the original poster's concerns. What actually dismays me is the poster's lack of morals. Refusing to work on the project will not stop it going ahead and her/his actions will have had no meaningful consequence. However if s/he were to get involved, s/he would at least have a degree more exposure to ensuring that the project is done properly, by pushing for environmental compliance to be strictly adhered to etc. If this is insufficient for the poster then s/he should leave law and join Greenpeace. Nothing wrong with that. But by swapping to another project the poster demonstrates that s/he is not interested in making a difference, s/he just wants to artificially keep his/her conscience clean and not take responsibility. To take the above analogy further, the person responsible for loading people onto trains and sending them to their death was no better than the person who killed them directly. This poster, by continuing to work for a firm, continues to enjoy the fruits of the firm's labour, s/he cannot control the income streams and derives a benefit from the nuclear project whether they work for it or not. The poster's question is not about ethics, it is about personal guilt. The above responses are not about dodging responsibility but taking it. I would hate to live in a society where the people with a monopoly on legal advice and representation could determine for themselves who to give it to and who to represent.
Posted on: 11 Sep 2008
"However, the two options you should consider are to act or to resign from law." There is another - discuss it in a non-confrontational and non-moralistic way with a senior person you respect and trust in the organisation. The firm will probably be able to service the client without insisting that you get involved, and (if you're good at your job) they will not want to lose you. Most law firms are broad churches, and will respect people who express sincere strongly-held principles. If that's not your firm, then I agree that the only option is to quit the firm or compromise - but not quit the law entirely.
Posted by: Got the T-Shirt on 12 Sep 2008
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