The findings of a major global survey of private legal practitioners have shown concern among lawyers about corruption within the legal profession, with more than one in five saying they had been approached to take part in what they believed could be a corrupt transaction, and one in three saying they believed they had lost business to corrupt law firms or individuals.
The survey, of 642 legal professionals in 95 jurisdictions, also underlined a lack of awareness of key international anti-corruption instruments such as the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) and the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention. According to the survey, 40 per cent of respondents had never heard of these instruments.
The report, ‘Risks and threats of corruption and the legal profession’, is part of the Anti-Corruption Strategy for the Legal Profession, an initiative led by the International Bar Association, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, to understand the impact of international anti-corruption instruments and associated implementing legislation with extraterritorial application on the legal practice, and to arm lawyers with the necessary tools and knowledge to identify, address and resolve potential threats to the integrity of the legal profession caused by corruption.