Professor Richard Moorhead delivers the second Hamlyn Lecture at the School of Law
This year’s Hamlyn lectures focused on critical issues in legal ethics and legal professionalism.
The Legal Professions Research Group (LPRG) in the School of Law at the University of Leeds was delighted to host Professor Richard Moorhead, Professor of Law and Professional Ethics at the University of Exeter, for the second lecture in the prestigious 2024 Hamlyn Lecture series. The lecture, titled ‘Extraordinary Orthodoxies and Legality Illusions: How Legal Logics Can Pollute Institutions’, took place on 6 November in the Moot Court Room of the Liberty Building.
This year’s Hamlyn lectures focused on critical issues in legal ethics and legal professionalism, with each lecture highlighting the flaws in legal systems and cultures exposed by the recent high-profile cases against postmasters and postmistresses, now known as the Post Office Scandal.
Professor Moorhead argues that the scandal was not an isolated incident but a symptom of broader systemic and cultural flaws within the legal profession. Although bad decisions and individual failings played a role, cultural and systemic problems that cut across the entire legal profession highlight the need for fundamental change. Professor Moorhead calls for a transformation in how lawyers think and behave, as well as how courts, clients, and regulators set their expectations. He argues that alongside fair and rigorous enforcement, the intellectual frameworks of lawyers must be refreshed, and the institutions they operate within strengthened.
In his Leeds lecture, Professor Moorhead shifted the focus from individual lawyers to the institutional contexts in which they operate. He explored how lawyers’ organisational settings – courts, law firms, and litigation cultures – can foster ‘extraordinary orthodoxies’ that distort decision-making and lead to cover-ups and false narratives. Drawing on examples from the Post Office Scandal, he explained how these orthodoxies culminate in ‘legality illusions’ that obstruct justice and perpetuate flawed systems. He emphasised the need for a simpler, socially meaningful approach to professional ethics to address these issues and to ensure more just outcomes in the future.
This lecture built on the themes introduced in his first Hamlyn lecture, ‘Unreliable Gods and Their Fearless Logics: What Drives Ethical Error’, which was delivered at the University of Exeter on 30 October, and prefaced the third and concluding lecture, ‘Lucidity, Morality, and Accountabilities: The Routes Back to Proper Professionalism?’ held at University College London on 13 November.
Addressing the audience at the conclusion of the lecture on behalf of the LPRG and the School of Law at the University of Leeds, Alex Batesmith said, “It is a real privilege to host such a timely and important lecture from such a renowned scholar and friend of the LPRG. We look forward to continuing our collaboration with Professor Moorhead and with the Hamlyn Trust in the future".