The Unaccountability Machine: Difference between revisions

Yet, much modern of modern business management — you hardly need an advanced degree in operations research to know these days, there’s a lot of it — exists specifically to prevent [[bad apple]]s, or [[stupid apple|''stupid'' apple]]s, subverting our complex modern systems.  

Its history is a catalogue of the singular failure to achieve that basic end. Our [[roll of honour]] refers. [[LIBOR rigging]] and the [[Post Office Horizon IT scandal|sub-postmasters débâcle]] are but pinnacle examples. 

The [[LIBOR rigging|LIBOR]] conundrum: with all that infrastructure, superstructure and supervision how were a band of relatively lowly trading staff able to run riot?

The [[Post Office Horizon IT scandal|Post Office]] conundrum: With all its infrastructure, internal and external legal advice, consultancy, and, er, second sight, how did ''no-one'' stop to think something must be wildly, catastrophically, wrong with the [[Post Office Horizon IT scandal|Post Office]]’s theory of the situation? How did no-one, even once, applying [[Otto’s razor]]?''Where were all the barking dogs? ''

{{drop|E|ither these are}} peculiar, localised problems — rogue gangs of [[Bad apple|bad apples]] plague the innocent houses of commerce — or the prevailing [[paradigm]] is in crisis and we need a new theory of the game. “Bad apples” are always the preferred diagnosis. They relieve earnest executives of responsibility, leaving at most a deniable residue of blame for hiring the bad apples in the first place.   

The post office middle managers do not. Few stood to gain from vilifying innocent postmasters, and those who did paled in comparison to the city bonuses on offer to the [[LIBOR]] submitters. These people did not seem psychopathic. Their motivations were not base. They do ''not'' resemble “bad apples”. Their offence, and it is not a crime, was weakness and credulity. These people are unremarkable, familiar, ''mediocre'' middle managers.  

Watching their excruciating evidence, three things occur: first — The weave of life’s tapestry wouldn’t have needed to be that different for these witnesses ''themselves'' to have been sub-postmasters on the other end of this outrage. None more so than CEO Paula Vennells, a middle-English lay Methodist, who even ''looks'' like a sub-postmaster.

Third — ''There but for the grace of God go I''. Post Office [[Inhouse counsel|in-house legal]] head Rodric Williams is a fifty-something expat New Zealander. His career trajectory, in vector if not altitude, has been strikingly similar to mine. In the halogen glare of cross-examined hindsight, his ineffectual interventions in an epic miscarriage of justice over an extended period were regrettable, but none of them resonate as ''odd''. Williams was adept at the sort of pencil-pushing, risk-averse [[buttocractic oath|buttocracy]] that is drilled by bitter experience into every in-house lawyer in the land. ''This is what in-house counsel do''. This is how we behave. We should ask ourselves: knowing what ''he'' knew ''then'', ''would we have done any differently''? We should not kid ourselves here.  

There is an argument, unstated in much commentary on the case, that the primary role of [[Inhouse counsel|in-house counsel]] — of not just the [[GC]] when preparing briefings to the board, but all lawyers in the organisation — is to act as the organisation’s moral compass. They, even more than their [[compliance]] colleagues, are ideally positioned to sit above the fray, from where they can interrogate the organisation’s baser commercial instincts, at least at points where they manifest in legal work product.

That’s a plausible theory of the game, but it hardly reflects current practice. For one thing, in-house [[legal is not in the operational stack]], so doesn’t see the great pitch and yaw of BAU activity that animates the firm’s mortal sinews. At most it would be an exceptional function. But it is not even that.

''No part of that transformation grew out of the yen for a stronger corporate conscience.'' It was about business facilitation, cost management ([[legal eagles]] were meant to be able to call bullshit on their external advisors) and the ''commodification'' of legal services. Precisely, the urge to codify rules and take away the need for anecdotal intellectual reflection about what the firm was doing. In-house legal is an accountability sink ''machine''.

Nor should it be: the corporate conscience should be imbued in its every representative, in every thing she does. A model that sees legal and compliance as a crack morality squad fighting a multi-front war to quell the infamy that would otherwise well unchecked in every servant’s breast is as ridiculous as it is unhinged.

Lawyers aren’t even expected to prioritise the law. Doubters are invited to peruse the thought-leadership of divers legal visionaries in its natural home: [[LinkedIn]]. There is any volume halfwittery about [[legal services|legal service delivery]], [[DEI]], the legal process excellence, demand management, the transformational potential of [[AI]]. But good luck finding a think-piece that even ''mentions'' the law, let alone anything as nebulous as an in-house lawyer’s obligation to make ethical judgments.

It is easy, and tempting, to put this down to an unusual confederacy of [[stupid apple]]s — this suits our personal self-esteem because if so, such a thing could not happen to us. We should not be so sure.

It would. But — thanks to the unaccountability machine — it is hardly likely.