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30 years ahead? What will then be our function in
the community?
I am exercising my Presidential privilege of express-
ing my own opinions. Others may disagree with some
of them. I am conscious of the dangers of prophecy
but one of the compensations for attempting to peer
into the crystal ball is that the prophet himself in this
instance may have passed on before the truth or falsity
of his predictions have come to be realised. It was re-
marked by one of my predecessors that if an attorney
of the year 1875 could return to the scene of his
labours today he would recognise little change. The
typewriter perhaps has replaced the old fashioned
scrivener; the telephone, to some an abominable and
time-wasting distraction, has replaced the office mes-
senger or handwritten and hand-delivered messages;
dictaphones are now reducing the demand for short-
hand typists, and the profession has responded, tardily
perhaps, to the demand for mechanisation, but neverthe-
less the speed of change has become more perceptible
within the past ten years and may accelerate in the
future. The outside world is changing and we must
change with it, not merely in our methods of work
but in our whole outlook and philosophical approach
to change. Otherwise, we shall fall behind other pro-
fessions and avocations which are more perceptive to
the needs of the public. I have no doubt that our pro-
fession will not fail in that respect and that we can
and will adapt ourselves to the demands of the future.
Legal Education
The starting point in any consideration of our future
needs must be our system of legal education and closely
allied to this problem is the number entering the pro-
fession and the question of adequate or excessive man-
power. Traditionally, since the early thirties the num-
ber of practising Solicitors has been approximately
1,300 in the Republic and the intake of apprentices has
varied from 30 to 40 per annum. During the past ten
or twelve years there has been an increased demand for
qualified lawyers either as assistants or partners, parti-
cularly in country districts where the demand has been
unsatisfied. Higher salaries and possibly more attrac-
tions for the young men or woman have drawn them
more and more to the cities—particularly Dublin, with
the result that country offices have, to some extent, been
starved of manpower. Allied to this, the disappearance
of the male law clerk and his replacement by female
employees has added to the difficulty of delegation of
the more routine tasks because female workers, due to
marriage and other factors, seldom acquire the exper-
tise and experience of the permanent male managing
clerk. This has increased the demand for the qualified
assistant solicitor and the demand for mechanisation so
that routine tasks may be completed more speedily.
The number of apprentices entering into Indentures has
increased fourfold during the past ten years so that
the number of practitioners now standing at about
1,450 may well be increased to 1,700 or more during
the next 5 years. Can the profession absorb that number
or is it likely that there will be a surplus of manpower
in the profession—an unused capacity with all the
undesirable consequences following from it? At the
moment it is possible only to state the problem and to
point out that it has complex components following
from our entry into the EEC, with the consequent
freedom of interchange between lawyers of the nine
member countries, the advance or recession of com-
mercial business on which our profession depends and
factors affecting particular localities such as mobility of
the population, which is daily causing a shift in the
number of residents from the more remote rural, areas
to Dublin, Cork and the larger towns. It is likely that
the demand for legal services in the more remote towns
will fall off with a consequent increase of demand in
Cities particularly Dublin and the areas of industrial
development.
Knowledge of Community Law essential
We must be prepared to adapt our system of legal
education to the needs of the future, as we enter upon
the vast and partly unexplored field of the changes
required by our entry into the European Economic
Community. The lawyer of the future, particularly the
solicitor who is consulted at the outset of a case, must
be equipped with sufficient knowledge of the Treaty of
Rome, and the numerous directives and regulations
flowing from it, to detect the existence of an interna-
tional problem and if he cannot solve it himself to
consult an expert. Here, our present system of educa-
tion is inadequate and must be remedied without delay.
We have concentrated in the past on the familiar fields
of the Common Law, Property, Contract and Tort,
Equity and the more specialised fields of Company and
Tax-law, Conveyancing, succession law and the other
subjects taught in our professional law school in the
Society. A university degree is still optional and the
student who does not take a degree may be admitted
as a Solicitor completely innocent of Constitutioned
Law, International Law, public or private, or Com-
parative Law. As you know the Society has had before
the Department of Justice since 1969 proposals for a
complete reform of the systenvof legal education which
would enable the Society itself to prescribe the
system by statutory regulation with judicial con-
currence from time to time and to make the necessary
changes to meet altered conditions without the neces-
sity of new legislation each time. A more flexible system
is needed. If the Society could obtain these powers,
regulations would be made providing for a university
degree, probably in law, before entering into articles of
apprenticeship, followed by an intensive period of train-
ing and examinations in the professional law school.
The third stage before admission would be a whole-
time paid period of articles in a solicitor's office leading
to admission, or, alternatively admission to the roll with
a limited practising certificate under which service as an
assistant solicitor for a prescribed period would be neces-
sary before admission to full practice. These proposals,
as I have indicated, were submitted to the Department
of Justice in 1969. They had already been submitted to
the Commission of Higher Education as a memoran-
dum from the Council in 1961. It is interesting to note
that our proposals substantially anticipated the Orm-
rod Report published in England a few years ago and
depressing to record that after a lapse of 12 years they
have made little or no progress towards the statute
book.
Wider Legal Curriculum in Universities
It would be an essential part of any scheme of legal
education in the Universities that the Law of the
EEC. Private International Law, and Comparative Law
should be included in the curriculum. This would in-
volve changes in the syllabus, and possibly the elimina-
tion of some less important subjects but Irish Consti-
tutional Law must be retained. This is a matter for
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