The Gazette 1981

INCORPORATED LAW SOCIETY OF IRELAND GAZETTE Vol. 75, No. 6 July/August 1981 In this i s s u e . . . Comment 127 Judicial Attitudes to the Construction of Written Contracts 129 For Your Diary 133 Adventure into Advertising 135 Central Office Delays in High Court Default Judgments.. 136 Professional Fees for Road Traffic Acts 136 The Builder and the Law 137 Land Registry Dealing Numbers... 143 Unattested Copies of Affidavits 143 Solicitors Accounts Regulations .... 143 Earlier Contract? 145 Mayo Solicitors Bar Association... 146 County Galway Solicitors Bar Association 146 Exclusion Clauses in Contracts for the Sale of Goods 147 Training Course for Law Clerks... 149 Professional Information 150

Comment . . . S T A T U TORY Instrument Number 2 37 of 1981, dated 30th June 1981, in a few brief words, has eliminated a legal institution of more than 1 00 years — the statutory Town Agent. Twenty or thirty years ago, a number of Dublin practices acted as Town Agent for their more distant colleagues. Over the years since then, Dublin representation has narrowed itself down until, today, one firm enjoys almost a complete monopoly of agency practice. The legal requirement that all Solicitors should maintain an office within convenient walking distance of the seat of justice dates from more spacious days, before the invention of the internal combustion engine and the telephone and of the other even more sophisticated electronic communication devices which are becoming increasingly widespread. In those days, the only practical means of affecting service of court documents was to deliver them in person. While this was practicable for Dublin City Solicitors, whose offices would in any event be situated within, at most, a mile or two of each other, it was clearly impossible for, s a y, a Cork Solicitor to effect personal service on a Solicitor in Sligo. So arose the requirement that all practitioners should maintain a town office, originally within the municipal boundary of Dublin City and later within two miles of the Four Courts, between whom could be passed all formal documentation from and between the further flung reaches of the profession. While the system undoubtedly had its uses, it was arguably unreasonable that two Solicitors, practising next door to each other in Tralee, should be required to effect service of documents upon each other through a token Dublin office within walking distance of Inns Quay. It has been obvious for some years that the anachronism could not remain for much longer but, to the older practitioner, the removal of the legal*obligation to maintain a registered address in Dublin, although welcome, cannot but represent the end of an era. (The text of the Statutory Instrument is published on p. 133).D

Executive Editor: Mary Buckley Editorial Board: Charles R. M. Meredith Chairman John F. Buckley William Earley Michael V. O'Mahony Maxwell Sweeney Advertising Liam Ó hOisin Manager: Telephone: 3 0 5 2 36

Incorporated Law Society of Ireland LAW DIRECTORY, 1982 All completed forms should be returned to the Society by 3 0 September, 1981

The views expressed in this publication, save where other wise indicated, are the views of the contributors and not necessarily the views of the Council of the Society. Published at Blackhall Place, Dublin 7.

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