Yesterday I spent the entire morning in a Law Society Review discussing what constitutes professional conduct and specifically,  whether a particular arbitrator had conducted a cross lease arbitration in a professional manner.

The arbitrator had been appointed by the Law Society to resolve four disputes regarding the development of a property that had been subdivided into two properties using the notorious cross-lease method. The arbitrator had muddled up the parties, muddled up the issues and invented a ruling that was in complete contradiction of Council Regulations.

As a result, his award was totally inoperative and he utterly failed to resolve any of the disputes he was engaged to resolve. This, I believe, was completely unprofessional. Whether the Law Society Review Committee agrees with me or not, remains to be seen.

However, this made me think about what professional conduct really means. These days, every company has some statement about what they value and how they will behave. Yet most of the time, this is totally disregarded and the only thing that seems to count is short term profit and personal greed. I find this immensely saddening.

At Hanging Gardens, we pride ourselves on caring for our clients and putting their interests at the forefront of our minds at all times. We take great delight when we can reduce costs for our clients. When we say we will do something, we do it. We respond to inquiries within 24 to 48 hours, as we believe time is precious. We try to add value to everyone’s business and we certainly design solutions that that will work over the long term. We don’t do this because a code of conduct tells us to do this. We do this because we believe it is the right thing to do. The fact that this also happens to be good for our business is a bonus!

The Reviewer summed up the situation by saying ‘the arbitrator had made a complete pig’s ear of the job‘. I think that is being most unkind to pigs. Perhaps the idiotic arbitrators should take note of what good conduct really means.