
Abuse: Solicitors not supporting victims
Lawyers giving independent legal advice (ILA) in cases of potential economic abuse of women are helping the abusers more than their clients, new research has suggested.
Dr Eleanor Rowan, lecturer in law at Cardiff University’s school of law and politics, said most solicitors interviewed for the research “prioritise commerce over care”, and were “principally concerned with the preservation of their self-image as facilitators and not frustrators of commercial transactions”, rather than assisting women potentially exposed to abuse.
In Commerce over care: exploring legal advice given in potential economic abuse cases, published in the journal Legal Ethics, Dr Rowan focused on “the specific instance where a victim-survivor of economic abuse is coerced into (re)mortgaging the family home for the purposes of advancing monies to the abuser’s business” or for other purposes.
In such situations, Dr Rowan said the House of Lords 2002 ruling in Etridge meant that such women had first to receive ILA from a solicitor.
The academic, who interviewed 22 solicitors for her research, went on: “Against the backdrop of increasing awareness about the severe impacts and widespread nature of economic abuse, most interviewees’ accounts on how they deliver ILA to women set to secure their intimate partner’s debts are deeply concerning.
“ILA could empower women no matter their circumstances. Insights from interviewees in this article indicate the opposite is happening; that ILA is providing very little meaningful assistance to women but working to the benefit of lenders, and potential abusers.”
All of interviewees were asked what was usually covered during an ILA meeting with a non-commercial surety client; 17 referred to going through a checklist sent by the lender.
This was “troubling”, Dr Rowan said. Instead of being “focused on learning about the client at the start of their meeting (as a relational lawyer would do)”, solicitors were instead focused on the automated process of following a checklist.
Most solicitors “demonstrated an inclination not to interfere, even where the circumstances amounted to reasonable grounds for believing that their client may have been unduly influenced”.
In providing ILA, most interviewees were failing to meet their duty under common law, as set out in Etridge, and under the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s code of conduct.
Dr Rowan said that where there were reasonable grounds for believing the client’s instructions were affected by undue influence, the code required the solicitor to satisfy themselves that the instructions represented the client’s wishes.
She went on: “It has been suggested that a potential reason for interviewees’ resistance to provide more relational and caring ILA is because this is not how they approach their wider work as commercial solicitors, where they principally prioritise values associated with the market-exchange model.
“Another issue is that the Etridge guidelines, whilst they do stipulate for relational lawyering in part, are not clear or in harmony with the SRA code of conduct on the extent to which lawyers should intervene where there is reason to suspect undue influence.”
The academic said the research showed there needed to be broader awareness among solicitors of economic abuse, and acknowledged “it is likely that solicitors would feel daunted by the argument presented in this article that they have a role to play in assisting clients experiencing economic abuse”.
Dr Rowan said one potential way to increase solicitor confidence in providing relational and caring services was specialist economic abuse training.
“Through training, solicitors could receive informed advice from experts in the field of economic abuse about how to have ‘personal’ and safe conversations with clients, and ‘actions that should be taken [both legal and practical] following a disclosure’.”
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