'Compliance is dead' business guru says

The future of law will not be governed by compliance but “driven by emotion”, not just in terms of new legislation but in the way that legal practice is conducted, a leading business strategist has predicted.

“Compliance is dead,” Dr Patrick Dixon, chairman of Global Change, said. “Compliance is OK – it keeps you out of jail, but it doesn’t do anything for the brand.”

Talking to nearly 200 legal professionals at the Strategic Leadership Forum in London last week, Dr Dixon warned that the future would not be driven by compliance.

“It will be driven by the most important word of the future which is emotion”, he said.

He said that rather than relying on a regulatory framework to dictate best practice, lawyers should use what they know about their clients to come up with principles they believe in. One such principle, he said, might be “clients have a right to know what they are paying for”.

He said businesses should use these principles to establish a moral framework which would defend them from retrospective reproaches over their conduct.

Not only should lawyers heed this advice for themselves, but they should share it with their clients, whose businesses face the same public scrutiny.

Alluding to the banking industry, and as a reminder of the changing opinions of society, he gave the example of a senior executive being retrospectively challenged for his part in paying a bribe to set up an office in a non-EU country – a practice that was legal, not to mention tax deductible, less than two decades ago.

Dr Dixon said the executive would not go to prison, but if these or similar actions were put under public scrutiny now his or her reputation could be irreparably damaged.

“You could end up a pariah in the society in which you are currently respected as a hero” Dixon said.

He acknowledged that the use of individual value judgements to determine best practice may not be enough in isolation but said that compliance standards should be only the baseline of good practice.

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