The Gazette 1993

APRIL . 1993

GAZETTE

Co r r e s ponden ce Quizzical Time Warp The Editor, Gazette, Blackhall Place, Dublin 7.

Disciplinary Cases

March edition and in particular to the words "In recent times, the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions has been opened up to solicitors." In the interest of historical accuracy and from a sense of duty to the first Senior Legal Assistant in that Office, the late Walter Carroll, a well regarded and very popular solicitor, I should state that solicitors and barristers have always been equally eligible for appointment as legal assistants in that Office since its inception and have been so appointed in approximately equal proportions.

Re: Liam Lysaght New Road, Clondalkin, ' Dublin 22.

2SA/1993

Sir, How relieved one is to learn that the Society can now provide a time-warp service to members. If ever a practitioner feels threatened by "effluxion of time" - if the word "lapse" acquires a sinister significance as one timorously thumbs through the Statue of Limitations or the Rules of the Superior Courts in dread of finding that the sands of time have run through one's trembling fingers, how nice to know that the alchemists of Dublin 7 can not only stop the clock - like Brussels signatories - but actually wind it back like the used car people! For one dreadful moment I thought that I had missed the Annual Quiz night at the Royal Marine on the 31st October, 1992. Picture if you will my sense of relief, nay rapture, to read a little further down on page 75 of the March, 1993 issue that I could yet avoid this disappointment by booking early. Words like "urgency" and expressions like "time of the essence" can now be stricken from the lexicon! Yours, Bill Riordan, Wilton Park House, Wilton Place. Please note that the date on the notice for the Younger Members Annual Quiz Night should have stated 31 March, 1993. Nonetheless, the quiz was a sell-out and raised £2,500 for charity! - Ed. Solicitors in the DPP's Office The Editor, Gazette, Dear Madam,

Censure and fine - inaccurate and untrue communication to another firm of solicitors On 8 March, 1993, the acting President of the High Court ordered that Liam Lysaght, solicitor, stand censured regarding his conduct as a solicitor and that he pay a fine to the Law Society in the sum of £500. The court had before it the report of an enquiry by the Disciplinary Committee of the High Court held on 23 June, 1992. The finding of the committee was that a letter dated 16 September, 1987 from the solicitor's firm to another firm of solicitors was inaccurate and untrue in that it represented that the solicitor had never acted for certain parties when in fact he had. On these facts the committee found the solicitor guilty of professional misconduct. The Acting President of the High Court found that the Disciplinary Committee was fully justified in its finding. He further stated that a solicitor's duty to his client could not be clearer. He was not entitled to be inaccurate. More importantly, solicitors must tell the truth, not just to clients but to everyone.

Yours sincerely,

Michael Liddy, Senior Legal Assistant, Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, 14-16 Merrion Street, Dublin 2.

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I refer to the Viewpoint article in the

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