The Uncertain Solicitor recognises the need for different thinking if we are to address the crises facing us and explores some examples of what that might look like.

Maybe it would help if we could end our fixation with seeing everything in proprietorial terms: my client, my firm, my following. It seems fanciful, applying current thinking, to do anything else. But the cumulative effect of one hundred thousand solicitors in England and Wales all adopting that approach is a fragmented and febrile professional culture. It means we regard acting in our client’s interests as promoting positions which push risk onto others, immediately setting them in opposition to those they want to do business with. I catch myself doing this instinctively. You almost have to when presented with a contract that is seeking to do that to your client. You push back and the legal costs mount and the relationship between the clients sours before it has begun as old arguments over warranties and indemnities and liability caps are rehearsed again. What if we created the conditions to let go of this thinking? What if we talked to our clients about embracing the African philosophy of ubuntu: I am because we are?