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Harvey Kass, legal director at Associated Newspapers, started a campaign last year to restrain barristers instructed regularly by newspapers from acting against them.
Kass, supported by in-house lawyers throughout Fleet Street, is arguing that barristers who act for newspapers gain sensitive information that they can then use when acting against the paper, and that this constitutes an untenable conflict of interest.
Whether Kass was right or wrong, he was certainly brave, and his idea unsettled the most powerful members of the libel bar. His move prompted the country's two top libel sets, 1 Brick Court and 5 Raymond Buildings, to write a strongly worded letter to The Lawyer decrying his idea, arguing that it conflicted with the 'cab rank' principle. While the Bar Council wants to protect cab rank, acting against former clients is rapidly going out of fashion at the commercial bar.
This, along with Kass's campaign, could prompt the Bar Council to start thinking about the future of the principle in an environment where lawyers' conflicts and client confidentiality are facing ever increasing scrutiny.
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