The Gazette 1973

30 years ahead? What will then be our function in the community? I am exercising my Presidential privilege of express- ing my own opinions. Others may disagree with some of them. I am conscious of the dangers of prophecy but one of the compensations for attempting to peer into the crystal ball is that the prophet himself in this instance may have passed on before the truth or falsity of his predictions have come to be realised. It was re- marked by one of my predecessors that if an attorney of the year 1875 could return to the scene of his labours today he would recognise little change. The typewriter perhaps has replaced the old fashioned scrivener; the telephone, to some an abominable and time-wasting distraction, has replaced the office mes- senger or handwritten and hand-delivered messages; dictaphones are now reducing the demand for short- hand typists, and the profession has responded, tardily perhaps, to the demand for mechanisation, but neverthe- less the speed of change has become more perceptible within the past ten years and may accelerate in the future. The outside world is changing and we must change with it, not merely in our methods of work but in our whole outlook and philosophical approach to change. Otherwise, we shall fall behind other pro- fessions and avocations which are more perceptive to the needs of the public. I have no doubt that our pro- fession will not fail in that respect and that we can and will adapt ourselves to the demands of the future. Legal Education The starting point in any consideration of our future needs must be our system of legal education and closely allied to this problem is the number entering the pro- fession and the question of adequate or excessive man- power. Traditionally, since the early thirties the num- ber of practising Solicitors has been approximately 1,300 in the Republic and the intake of apprentices has varied from 30 to 40 per annum. During the past ten or twelve years there has been an increased demand for qualified lawyers either as assistants or partners, parti- cularly in country districts where the demand has been unsatisfied. Higher salaries and possibly more attrac- tions for the young men or woman have drawn them more and more to the cities—particularly Dublin, with the result that country offices have, to some extent, been starved of manpower. Allied to this, the disappearance of the male law clerk and his replacement by female employees has added to the difficulty of delegation of the more routine tasks because female workers, due to marriage and other factors, seldom acquire the exper- tise and experience of the permanent male managing clerk. This has increased the demand for the qualified assistant solicitor and the demand for mechanisation so that routine tasks may be completed more speedily. The number of apprentices entering into Indentures has increased fourfold during the past ten years so that the number of practitioners now standing at about 1,450 may well be increased to 1,700 or more during the next 5 years. Can the profession absorb that number or is it likely that there will be a surplus of manpower in the profession—an unused capacity with all the undesirable consequences following from it? At the moment it is possible only to state the problem and to point out that it has complex components following from our entry into the EEC, with the consequent freedom of interchange between lawyers of the nine member countries, the advance or recession of com- mercial business on which our profession depends and

factors affecting particular localities such as mobility of the population, which is daily causing a shift in the number of residents from the more remote rural, areas to Dublin, Cork and the larger towns. It is likely that the demand for legal services in the more remote towns will fall off with a consequent increase of demand in Cities particularly Dublin and the areas of industrial development. Knowledge of Community Law essential We must be prepared to adapt our system of legal education to the needs of the future, as we enter upon the vast and partly unexplored field of the changes required by our entry into the European Economic Community. The lawyer of the future, particularly the solicitor who is consulted at the outset of a case, must be equipped with sufficient knowledge of the Treaty of Rome, and the numerous directives and regulations flowing from it, to detect the existence of an interna- tional problem and if he cannot solve it himself to consult an expert. Here, our present system of educa- tion is inadequate and must be remedied without delay. We have concentrated in the past on the familiar fields of the Common Law, Property, Contract and Tort, Equity and the more specialised fields of Company and Tax-law, Conveyancing, succession law and the other subjects taught in our professional law school in the Society. A university degree is still optional and the student who does not take a degree may be admitted as a Solicitor completely innocent of Constitutioned Law, International Law, public or private, or Com- parative Law. As you know the Society has had before the Department of Justice since 1969 proposals for a complete reform of the systenvof legal education which would enable the Society itself to prescribe the system by statutory regulation with judicial con- currence from time to time and to make the necessary changes to meet altered conditions without the neces- sity of new legislation each time. A more flexible system is needed. If the Society could obtain these powers, regulations would be made providing for a university degree, probably in law, before entering into articles of apprenticeship, followed by an intensive period of train- ing and examinations in the professional law school. The third stage before admission would be a whole- time paid period of articles in a solicitor's office leading to admission, or, alternatively admission to the roll with a limited practising certificate under which service as an assistant solicitor for a prescribed period would be neces- sary before admission to full practice. These proposals, as I have indicated, were submitted to the Department of Justice in 1969. They had already been submitted to the Commission of Higher Education as a memoran- dum from the Council in 1961. It is interesting to note that our proposals substantially anticipated the Orm- rod Report published in England a few years ago and depressing to record that after a lapse of 12 years they have made little or no progress towards the statute book. Wider Legal Curriculum in Universities It would be an essential part of any scheme of legal education in the Universities that the Law of the EEC. Private International Law, and Comparative Law should be included in the curriculum. This would in- volve changes in the syllabus, and possibly the elimina- tion of some less important subjects but Irish Consti- tutional Law must be retained. This is a matter for 136