The Gazette 1996

APRIL/MAY 1996

GAZETTE

N E WS

Marathon Meeting Votes, Votes, Votes for Change, Change, Change

One of the most important meetings in the 140-year history of the Law Society also proved to be one of the longest. Almost six hours was spent in debate at the Special General Meeting in Blackhall Place on 7 March, 1996, before the process of considering and voting on each of the 106 recommendations of the Review Working Group was completed. The great majority of recommendations were accepted without the need for much debate. Some of the recommendations, however, were highly controversial and a few were voted through with relatively small margins. One recommendation, relating to Council meeting attendance by former presidents, in fact produced a tied vote. This required the President, Andrew F. Smyth, to exercise his Chairman's casting vote. Of the 106 recommendations, no less than 96 were adopted by the meeting without any amendment. The majority of the others were approved with amendments supported by the Review Working Group. In essence, therefore, practically every recommended change in the Society was accepted by the 220 members, from 18 counties, who attended the meeting, the great majority of whom were still present at the very end when the most controversial and tar-reaching proposals were put and voted upon.

A vote in a hundred - practically every recommended change in the Society was accepted by the 220 members who attended the meeting.

The Review Working Group spent some 70 hours in meetings over a period of nine months and on 6 November, 1995, produced its detailed written Report, with 106 specific recommendations, a copy of which was sent to every solicitor. Members of the Review Working Group Donal G. Binchy, O'Brien & Binchy, Clonmel, Co. Tipperary (Chairman) Leo Mangan, Mangan O'Beirne, Dublin Daire Murphy, Abercorn, Dublin Ken Murphy, Director General. Law Society Pat O'Connor, P. O'Connor & Son, Swinford, Co. Mayo John Shaw, J.A. Shaw & Co., Mullingar, Co. Westmeath Liam Young, Young & Co. Dublin Mary Keane, Policy Development Executive, Law Society (Secretary to the Group)

1994 Annual General Meeting of a resolution calling for an inquiry to examine the structure and administration of the Society with a view to better serving the solicitors' profession in modern Ireland. That Annual General Meeting had revealed a serious level of members' dissatisfaction with the Society. One of the prime movers in bringing forward the resolution to that stormy Annual General Meeting was Leo Mangan, who was subsequently appointed to the Review Working Group. The Review Working Group was designed to represent a balance between, on the one hand, members who had extensive experience as Council members of the Society and who could therefore contribute knowledge of how things actually worked and, on the other hand, members who had never served on the Council and who therefore could contribute the 'outsider' perspective of ordinary members of the Society. It symbolically bridged the gap perceived by some to exist between ordinary members and the Council.

Throughout the evening the meeting's appetite for change and its approval of

the Review Working Group's blueprint for the future was unfaltering and overwhelming.

Background The seven members of the Review Working Group were appointed by the then President of the Law Society, Patrick A. Glynn, following the passing at the Society's November

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