The Gazette 1979

GAZETTE

JULY-AUGUST

1979

Are Young Solicitors Getting a

Raw Deal from the Profession?

Text of an address read by Harry Sexton at the Society's Annual Conference in Galway

I must first question why, from the wording of the

motion, it is clearly assumed that young Solicitors are

quite set apart from and unconnected with "The

Profession". This, of course, is not the case and figures

can show that today we have a very young profession —

so young in fact that it can be argued that young

Solicitors largely constitute "The Profession". Suffice it

to say without delving too deeply into the realm of

statistics that roughly one third of the profession is less

than five years qualified. Another way of putting this is to

say that 40% of members are under the cradle age of 30.

When making comparisons with other jurisdictions of

similar size and population these statistics are not

particularly unusual. However, no other jurisdiction is

expecting anything approaching the rapid growth in

numbers forecast for our own profession. Another

thousand newly qualified Solicitors will emerge within the

next four years and almost as many again will qualify

under the new training programme by 1986. And then we

are labelled exclusionists.

It is clear that young lobby is becoming increasingly

strong, if not yet vocal, and that the demands of the

young Profession are of everyday concern to the majority

of firms in the Country, large or small. These demands

are many and varied whether you are among the

members of a panel or partners in a large firm employing

many assistant Solicitors or simply the principal in a

small office employing perhaps one or two assistants. On

reflection this is hardly surprising in that the present

younger generation — not merely Solicitors - irrespective

of class, background or occupation has far higher

expectations of life in general than any previous

generation. Career's Guidance experts are often amazed

at the expectations of School leavers especially among

those who for want of ability or ambition or both will

almost inevitably fail to reach those expectation.

Similarly, young Solicitors embarking on new careers

could be criticized for having unrealistic expectations

regarding salary and conditions. On the other hand it

would be difficult to alter these expectations given today's

affluent Society and, having accepted them as fact, atten-

tion must be focussed on whether young Solicitors are

given a raw deal. I must make it absolutely clear that the

pomments and criticisms I shall offer are in no way

intended to be a reflection on any of my colleagues with

whom I am professionally associated at the moment but

are drawn mainly from my knowledge of the experiences

°f friends and acquaintances in the Profession.

Young Solicitors not infrequently accept employment

where unknown to themselves at the outset, they are re-

quired to perform what are vulgarly called "fire brigade"

°bs in their employer's Offices. The place is never

actually on fire. Nor are flames leaping to the heavens in a

metaphorical sense for then the Law Society's trusty

firemen would be foaming and splashing out freezing

Orders and all sorts of molten brimstone to quell the

raging torrent. No. The kind of place I am speaking of

could be compared to old smouldering coals which are at

anytime going to kindle violently. And the trouble is that

you need quite an experienced and hard necked chap to

be able to sit down on these coals in order to prevent the

said kindling. These Offices have three distinguishing

features; first, work is normally badly in arrears;

secondly, the work to be cleared up cannot be cleared up

quickly since this is the main reason why it has fallen into

arrears in the first place; lastly, things keep getting lost as

a result of poor or non-existant filing and indexing

systems. How often have we all heard of the young

Solicitor, now two or three years qualified who has been

driven to setting up practice on his own largely out of

sense of despair that he would never find a satisfactory

place to work. Even though establishing a new practice is

fraught with all sorts of difficulties such as attracting

business in the early stages and initial cash flow

difficiencies regular perusal <of the Personal Columns of

the daily newspapers will normally reveal one disatisfied

young Solicitor setting up on his own each week. Without

exaggeration and humorous analogies apart, this is quite

a serious indictment of the Profession as a whole. While

many more factors may influence such a decision, what

Solicitor will happily remain for long in an office where

many difficult administrations must be completed in

respect of deaths occurring in excess of 20 years ago?

How long will an assistant stay in a place where Title

Documents all too frequently get lost or where papers

often are misfiled because of an antiquated filing system?

Not long. And these deplorable conditions are frequently

encountered. The irony is that only a small number of

offices are in such a state and it is true that many offices

have changed to employ proper filing systems and

methods of indexation and are now grappling with

problems such as the storage of old files and the making

of old information more easily accessible. The problem is

that generally it is the static and unchanging office which

engages the services of a young Solicitor and it is a fairly

safe bet that up to one half of nationally advertised vacancies

emanate from office of this kind.

Hand in hand with "fire brigading" go poor physical

working conditions. It is frequently said that a

professional should have a small room and a small desk

for otherwise, with a big room and a big desk, he will

soon need two big rooms and two big desks. This may be

an exaggeration but the principle is correct. A balance

must be struck between too much space on the one hand

leading to losing things and over crowding on the other

leading to . .. losing things. Much of this may be a matter

of personal taste and it is true that spaciousness may have

little to do with efficiency. Generally speaking, however,

an assistant Solicitor's room measuring in floor area

perhaps the size of some of our more renowned

practitioners desks is somewhat less than adequate. And

these conditions exist, make no mistake about it. In such

circumstances even the most energetic and efficient young

assistant will find it tiresomely difficult to wage war and

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