IPS launched at 2010 ILEX National Conference
The official launch of ILEX Professional
Standards took place on Thursday 11 March 2010 at the Commonwealth
Club in London, following the 2010 ILEX National
Conference. The chair of IPS, Alan Kershaw, introduced the
guest speaker Lord Hunt of Wirral.
Lord Hunt , whose
influential report on the regulation of solicitors has set the
agenda for regulatory reform, praised the "brilliant" new ILEX Code
of Conduct saying that it would “set a benchmark for others”.
The Conservative peer said: “As the legal
profession undergoes a radical transformation as a result of the
Legal Services Act 2009, it has become even more vital that the
whole profession reemphasises its commitment to the highest
possible professional standards. Professional ethics form the
very bedrock of the delivery of legal services".
“We must ensure that the legal profession
continues to provide the gold standard in the development of
principles-based regulation. At the heart of the discussion
should be a decisive move away from bureaucratic box-ticking to
widespread acceptance of the sort of Code of Conduct for legal
executives and other members of ILEX which has now been
produced.”
He praised the Code of Conduct developed by
ILEX Professional Standards Limited, saying it was “a brilliantly
clear, simple and user-friendly code which is set at a high level
of principle. This is the way forward everyone must now
embrace.”
He continued: ‘If we are to
retain the confidence of the public as their trusted advisers, we
must do everything possible to prove that professional values and
professionalism, suitably reinvigorated for this modern age, are on
the march and not on the wane.
“We have always been, and
must remain, the first resort for advice by a population that is
rightly feeling bewildered in the face on an increasingly complex
legislative and bureaucratic onslaught. The clear message to
everyone in the legal profession is that is it our individual and
collective responsibility not just to uphold the highest possible
professional standards, but to be seen as ambassadors of integrity
and independence.”
At the launch Alan Kershaw
took the opportunity to highlight the central plank of the IPS
strategy, saying: ‘We will define, promote and secure, in the
public interest, proper standards of professional conduct and
behaviour among ILEX members."
Mr Kershaw explained: "That simply means that
we will make it our business to ensure, as far as we can, that
everyone who becomes an ILEX member is fit on that day to do what
the public has a right to expect of them. That they remain able, on
every day of their careers, to deliver safe, competent practice in
their chosen field. And that, if something goes badly wrong, we
have a firm and fair way of putting that right and sending a
message to that member, to the profession as a whole and to the
public at large. That is the core business of professional
regulation and we will stick firmly to it.”
(home)