The Gazette 1921-25

The Gazette of the Incorporated Law Society of Ireland.

[JUNE, 1921

refreshment known as costs, especially as those who still thirst for it can get it. On the subject of professional remuneration (a topic I do not wish to labour) it has been necessary in the altered economic conditions to. bring them in common with all other professions and business more into proportion with the increased cost of living ; the wind has been tempered to the shorn lamb by an increase which but partially effects this object. We hope, however, that improved conditions may help to equalise matters, but at present the advantage is with the public, and we are the sufferers. In this connection an increase of 50% has been made in local Bankruptcy Court proceedings in order to bring it into line with what has been done in relation to High Court business. My first experience on becoming as your President a member of the Rule-making Authority was in connection with the framing of Rules of Court, rendered necessary by that startling development of modern times, the Lady Juror, Rules rendered necessary in connection with the empanelling of mixed juries. The Treasury have increased the fees payable in the Registry of Deeds, a tax which falls upon the public, but which I record as every increase of the kind increases the total of legal expenses, which the public are prone to forget often involves a large amount of outlay. In common with other public bodies we have made formal protest to the Government against the increase in telephone charges, but as you are aware the Government remained adamant, and the public suffer, nevertheless I record the effort we made as having been done not only in our own interests but those of our clients, the public. The Treasury regulations by which Exchequer Bonds and National War Bonds and War Loan Stock belonging to deceased persons are accepted in payment of death duties, has been largely availed of. These Bonds the State must accept in payment of the price of issue. I need scarcely point out that I only touch upon matters that may be of public interest, and that your Council accomplishes much a bill of

conditions. I pray God that it may be so, and I exhort you to acquit yourselves in any reorganisation of our national affairs with credit to yourselves, to your profession, and to your country. It is my duty as President to review the work of your Council during the past half- year as it affects you, and as it affects the public whom we serve. Your. Council commenced its labours in the present year deprived of the valuable assist– ance of their former colleague and past President, Mr. Charles St. G. Orpen, who after unselfish and attentive service to your Council for fifteen years resigned, much to our regret and to your loss. We have, however, been strengthened by new blood, and our new colleagues have fully justified your confidence. For a long time it has been felt that the highly technical and laborious process of rendering legal charges in detail was not only undignified, but in a great many instances unnecessary. The legal work of a Solicitor, involving as it does expert legal knowledge and training, with the incidental anxiety, responsibility and expense, is practically impossible to delineate accurately on paper, and the antiquated medium of a bill of costs not only fails to do this but presents a number of unintelligible items, often both confusing and irritating to the client. In England this form of recording professional services has been in practice superseded for some time (subject of course to the right of the client to have details if required), and professional accounts furnished in globo. By a general Order under the- Solicitors' Remuneration Act it has been enacted that professional accounts in this country in respect of legal business under that Act to which no settled Scale fee attaches may be furnished in gross, reserving the right of the client so requiring it to full details, and to taxation within twelve months of furnish– ing the account, or within one month of its payment. I don't think the public ever suffer by any reform that adds to the dignity of professional life, and I don't think they will have any cause to complain of the deprivation of that particularly unpalatable class of literary