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petent? I am speaking not merely of those expert in a
particular branch of the law, as contrasted with a
general practitioner, but also of those of long experience
and great skill as contrasted with those practising in
the same field of the law but being of a more ordinary
calibre and having less experience. The essence of the
contract of retainer, it may be said, is that the client
is retaining the particular solicitor or firm in question,
and he is therefore entitled to expect from that solicitor
or firm a standard of care and skill commensurate with
the skill and experience which that solicitor or firm
has. The uniform standard of care postulated for the
world at large in tort hardly seems appropriate when
by MARY LELAND
The urgent need for a comprehensive scheme of free
legal aid and advice in civil and criminal cases in
Ireland was stressed by members of the Free Legal
Advisory Bureau in Cork yesterday at a conference to
introduce its annual report.
The bureau is operated by law students from UCC,
who are now pressing for a meeting between the Minis-
ter for Justice and the three F.L.A. centres, in Cork,
Galway and Dublin.
Introducing the report, which deals with the many
areas of activity of the bureau in Cork, Mr. Finbarr
Murphy, B.C.L., criticised the existing legal aid scheme
in Ireland and he indicated other areas in the legal
system in which reform is urgently needed, beginning
with that of legal education itself.
Under the existing system legal aid in Ireland was
available only for criminal cases, Mr. Murphy said,
and only covered representation in the Courts where
the defendant was judged to have insufficient means
to afford independent representation, and where the
Court thought it essential in the interests of justice
because of the gravity of the charge or other excep-
tional circumstances.
"It is always essential in the interests of justice that a
person be represented in Court," Mr. Murphy said.
"We feel that the criteria under which the system is
applied are restrictively interpreted by the Courts, and
we would urge that these two provisos be dropped
altogether. We consider it unjust that the granting of a
Legal Aid District Court Certificate should be the final
and unappealable decision of the District Court, and
we also criticise the fact that under the Criminal Proce-
dures Act of 1967 preliminary hearings are excluded
from legal aid, except in cases of a charge of murder.
As preliminary hearings are a critically important stage
of a criminal procedure this restriction is unjust."
Because most people were unaware of the existence of
the scheme, Mr. Murphy said, a person being arrested
or charged should be told immediately that they could
have free legal aid. He also urged the extension of the
scheme to cover civil cases, and he pointed out that the
retrictive nature of the present system was in fact
hindering the process of law reform, particularly in
those social areas where it was most needed.
Lack of information deplored
Dealing with the work carried out by the Cork
bureau, Mr. Murphy said that they had found it impos-
sible to obtain essential information from the Depart-
the duty is not one imposed by the law of tort but
arises from a contractual obligation existing between
the client and the particular solicitor or firm in question
This was an action by the plaintiff, Margaret,
Duchess of Argyll, against the defendant, Mr. Oscar
Albert Beuselinck, who was a solicitor, claiming damages
for negligence on the ground that he had failed to give
her the advice which he ought to have done in relation
to her entering into a contract with literary agents for
the publication of her life story, thereby involving her
in liability to tax.
URGED AS
ment of Justice. "It's like trying to get blood out of a
stone," he said. "When we went to the Department
repeated letters received no answers at all. When we
went to the District Court in Cork for information on
juvenile cases they were not prepared to help either,
possibly because they were afraid their jobs might be
placed on the line. We have not been able to get reli-
able figures for the District Court sessions when cases
involving children come before the Distirct Justice.
However, although information is not forthcoming
from official sources, a rough estimate finds the number
of children passing through the District Court in Cork
to be between 350 and 500 a year. This can be broken
down into about seven to ten new cases each week but
we have not been able to discover how many of these
were professionally represented."
Need for law reform
Discussing the need for law reform, Mr. Murphy said
that such reform was hindered by the fact that the
people who were affected by the faulty areas of the law
were not in a position to go to a solicitor and as a
result many solicitors lacked expert knowledge of these
particular areas. He agreed that there was no doubt
that the legal profession was reluctant to advocate law
reform, although they were the people who knew the
law. "Lawyers generally tend to administer the law as
it exists," he said, "and the legal profession in Ireland
is a very introverted one, with the people most likely
to go into law being the sons and daughters of solicitors
and barristers."
He foresaw a crisis in legal education if there was a
sharp increase in the number of people wanting to be
apprenticed to solicitors. Under the Irish system of
education a solicitor could only have two apprentices
at a time, and no-one could begin the course without
being apprenticed. "The numbers taking law at college
have in fact been increasing because of the education
grants but a university degree does not make you a
professional lawyer unless you also go either to the
Kings Inns or to the Four Courts. It is a long and
anachronistic system." He added that in many firms in
Cork, however, the student had merely to pay the
apprenticeship fee, ranging from £300 to £1,000—and
need not attend the office for the five years of the
apprenticeship. Some solicitors required no payment at
all, but those who took high fees usually demanded
attendance as well.
The Irish Times
(3rd April 1973)
128
NEW LEGAL A ID SYSTEM
START TO LAW REFORM