The Gazette 1972

EDITORIAL

Community Legislation

Now that five-sixths of the voting electorate in the Irish

Republic have sanctioned the constitutional amendment

which enables Community legislation to supersede the

Constitution in any case where it is necessary to vive

effect to the Treaties of Rome and Paris, it becomes

more necessary than ever for Irish legal practitioners to

gain some knowledge, not merely of the Treaties, but

of the more important directives and regulations affect-

ing changes in Irish law. This will he a formidable task,

Legal education —

by MICHAEL ZANDER

A year after publication of the Ormrod Report on legal

education there are already signs that the committee's

most controversial proposal, that the universities and

polytechnics should handle not only the academic but

also the vocational stage of institutional training, will be

abandoned as unrealistic. And it is still uncertain what

practical effect its overall recommendations are likely to

have.

The committee thought that both sides of the legal

profession would be forced by shortage of funds to ask

that the proposed one-year vocational training course

be financed out of public money. The report envisaged

that the Bar's Council of Legal Education and the Law

Society's College of Law would somehow be merged

into universities and polytechnics. It thought that at

least four such centres in different parts of the country

would be needed to cope with the numbers coming into

the profession.

The solicitor members of the committee dissented

from this major conclusion and, since the publication of

the Report, the Bar too has made it clear that it wants,

if possible, to continue to run its own show.

The main sticking point is the magic concept of "con-

trol." Neither side of the profession is prepared to con-

cede to anyone.

The Department of Education and Science has made

it clear, however, that no public funds are likely to be

forthcoming by way of direct grant to the professional

schools and the only practical alternatives are therefore

either self-financing by the profession or a genuine

transfer of the courses to universities or polytechnics.

If the profession felt itself obliged to ask for such a

transfer, it would, for mainly snobbish reasons, prefer

that the courses be provided by the universities. Both

the University Grants Committee and the DES would

prefer that this development in legal education should

be put into the polytechnics.

Since receipts from students will undoubtedly be a

major element in the financing of the courses, the pro-

fession will fix fees at the highest possible figure with-

out pricing itself out of the market.

Students attending the Bar's vocational training course

now pay £221, which is near the true cost. The Law

and it would seem that some lawyers in the larger

towns will henceforth have to specialise in Community

Law as it is a very intricate subject in itself which

seemingly can only be combined with ordinary prac-

tice in large firms. It is hoped to bring to the notice of

practitioners the important decisions of the European

Court and the effect of the more important directives

and regulations which may affect them.

a legal tangle

Society has not yet fixed the fees for its vocational

course due to be started on a pilot basis for 240 students

in 1974. But considering that it would have 40 weeks'

teaching, as compared with 21 for the Bar course, the

cost would not be less than £500 per student. If public

moneys are not available, any difference between fees

and the true cost will have to be made up through a

levy on the profession.

The Ormrod Committee based its calculations and

projections on about 1,120 solicitors and 170 barristers

entering practice each year. These figures are already

clearly under-estimates.

Projections of members should now be part of the

function of the advisory committee set up in January

by the Lord Chancellor as suggested in the Ormrod Re-

port. The committee's functions are to advise the pro-

fession and the relevant institutions of higher education

on all matters affecting education and training of en-

trants to the legal profession. The Ormrod Report said

that the committee should have a part-time secretariat

and should collect and disseminate much needed statis-

tics relating to legal education.

It thought the Secretariat should be supplied by the

Lord Chancellor's Department and that the expenses

of the committee should be shared between the profes-

sional bodies and Government sources in the shape of

Lord Chancellor's Department and the DES.

This hope has not however, been realised. The Lord

Chancellor's Department and the DES both take the

view that, the task of the committee being to advise the

profession and not a Minister, it is for the profession

to provide it with the means to do its work. Not wishing

for work without power or responsibility, the Lord

Chancellor's Department has declined even to provide a

Secretariat which has been made the task of the La^

Society instead.

The committee has so far met three times and hope

before the summer to issue its first report on the recog-

nition by the profession of first degree courses. In r e -

ticular, it will have to decide whether to make any

protest at the intention of both sides of the profession

to proceed with their own separate courses rather than

to implement the Ormrod Committee's concept.

The Guardian

(18th April. 1972)

130