Boxing anyone? Battering of professions continues. Lawyers next.

By Alec Hogg

Listening to world boxing champion Anthony Joshua last week was a reminder of how most immigrants measure success – through achievements of their children. In the UK’s Nigerian community, the articulate heavyweight shared, “you’re expected to become a lawyer or a doctor – my folks weren’t happy I became a fighter.”

Paul O’Sullivan and comrade in arms Lord Peter Hain are after global law firm Hogan Lovells.

With a continuous battering of the professions, it’s not just immigrant parents seeking alternatives. After the release of a 100 page report into the £7bn collapse of Carillion, British MPs are demanding an investigation into what has been exposed as the “cosy club” of the Big Four accounting firms.

That’s just the latest scandal in a string of reputational disasters that have hit a once revered profession. Ask anyone associated with KPMG. Or, after chartered accountant Markus Jooste’s defrocking, those who proudly flaunted their CAs. Ditto management consultants, courtesy of the industry’s besmirched leader McKinsey.

If forensic investigator Paul O’Sullivan and comrade in arms Lord Peter Hain have their way, lawyers will soon join these polecats. The duo are after global law firm Hogan Lovells which they say was the “go-to” shop for perpetrators of South Africa’s state capture. They won’t rest until it goes the way of bankrupted Bell Pottinger. Boxing anyone?

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