Corruption runs rampant in the global legal community, according to a survey released earlier this week.
At its annual conference, which was in Vancouver this year, the International Bar Association released findings indicating that nearly half of the lawyers they asked said that corruption affects them and their peers. A total of 642 lawyers from 95 countries participated in the poll.
The results vary widely from region to region, reports the Associated Press. Every lawyer in China, Guatemala and Pakistan indicated that corruption was a problem, but that figure drops to 16 percent for Australia and New Zealand. The Association was quick to note, however, that the small sample size potentially skewed the statistics.
For a personal account of the struggles faced by lawyers facing corruption, check out our recent post about McCarthys lawyer George Gray’s recent mission to Colombia with Lawyers Without Borders Canada. The AP article reports that 70 percent of lawyers in Latin America (as well as Africa and Eastern Europe) found corruption tainting their legal communities.