The Gazette 1981

INCORPORATED LAW SOCIETI OF IRELAND

March 1981

Vol. 75, No.2

Our Apprentices It is - or should be - a truism that the only successful contract is one in which each party feels entirely satisfied that his or her interests are adequately and fairly provided for - and that, if an element of mutual compromise is involved, such compromise is as fair as it can be, from the point of view of each party. It must be a very inexperienced or unthinking (or, perhaps, cynical) solicitor who can permit a client to enter into an agreement which that solicitor and client know to be weighted against the other party; on the general, if obscure, proposition that worms turn, sooner or later that I other party is likely to discover ' the extent of the dis– advantage and to seek redress. The relationship of master and apprentice is one of contract and, with the emergence in April of another ninety-six apprentices from their first six months of intensive practical training in the Society's Law School, this may be an appropriate time to look again at that contract. On the part of the apprentice, the essential commit– ment is "well and faithfully to serve the master" during the term of the apprenticeship. For the master, the commitment is more specific - including "providing the apprentice with such facilities in the master's office as are necessary to enable the apprentice to learn the practice and profession of a solicitor" and, "by the best ways and means he can and to the utmost of his skill and knowl– edge, to teach and instruct the apprentice ... in the prac– tice and profession of a solicitor". In addition, the master will also have executed an Undertaking whereby, inter alia, he has agreed to pay the apprentice adequately,' to provide sufficient space for the apprentice, and to ensure that the apprentice obtains reasonable exposure in all the areas of the office's prac– tice. In considering the terms and conditions surrounding the relationship of master and apprentice, it is essential to realise that the apprentice with whom we are now dealing is a very different being from that of yesteryear. The new apprentice is likely to be a lawyer, holding a university law degree, before becoming apprenticed. The first six months of apprenticeship will be spent in the Society's Law School learning how to put into practice the legal knowledge the apprentice has gained in college. Thus, the apprentices who will be coming into their master's offices this April should be well able to play a useful and constructive role in the office and, in a comparatively

Our Investment? short space of time, to become a "fee-earner". The m~~e.r's duty to provide the apprentice with the necessary facilities to learn and to teach and instruct the apprentice, must be considered in this context. Although in general the arrangements work wdl and to the satisfaction of both parties, it has been found by the Law School administration, through its regular dis– cussions with apprentices and visits to masters' offices that not all masters are honouring their Undertakings. ' To deny the apprentice a room II' a telephone, or even - as has happened - a desk to sit a and a chair to sit on and to fail to provide the apprentice with sufficient work to just~fy those years of legal education and training, is as shortsighted and as destructive as it is a breach of the m~ster's .co~tract. For ~ master to fail an apprentice in this unthinkmg manner IS to put the apprentice into the position of the aggrieved party to the contract· as the . . , apprentice acqwres more knowledge and, with that knowledge, more confidence, the apprentice will seek some for"? of redre~s. That redress can take many forms, from passive to active but, whatever form it may take, it can only lead to soured relationships between apprentice and master and, worse, between apprentice and the profession. At the same time, the apprentice must not expect red carpets to appear, miraculously, down every corri or he travels. A great deal of a solicitor's life is spent upon poorly remunerated "donkey work" and the apprentice must expect his fair share. The apprentice must be prepared to pay such menial dues as may be necessary to find his way around the ever-increasing range of bureau– cratic offices with which the profession is involved and to discover how such offices may be used to the best advan– tage of both. Above all, the apprentice - in today's economic climate - is arguably fortunate to have found a master at all and must, to some extent, be prepared to take a little rough with the smooth. But the fact that demand for apprenticeships, at present, far exceeds the supply is no justification for a master to' abrogate his ~de of the contract. To do so is not alone unfair, unkind and probably harmful to the profession as a whole - it is to turn one's back on what .may well be the first opportunity, in the history of the profession, to acquire a properly qualified and properly trained assistant who should be worth his or her weight in the gold which both the apprentice and the profession have invested in his or her education.