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GAZETTE
JULY-AUGUST
1979
The ususal —but not the only —method of entry is by
having a law degree. Apprenticeship normally lasts three
years.
The student will usually attend at the office of his
"Master" solicitor for two or three months to get a feel of
a law office before embarking on the Society's Pro-
fessional Course. This is an intensive five and a half day
week in a workshop setting; it is followed by 18 months in
the office of the master solicitor and a further two months
back in the Society's Law School in Dublin doing the
Advaiiced Course. The student: staff ratio is 12: 1 with
instruction given by practising solicitors for the most part.
Over 130 members of the profession are taking part as
tutors in the Professional Course.
This comprehensive preparation will enable the newly
qualified solicitor to apply immediately his theoretical
knowledge and give a better service to die public, having
had a basic practical training during the Professional
Course.
The Society wishes to stress the following points:
(1) The cost to the student of the Professional and
Advanced Courses is £1,050; examination and registra-
tion fees (which have not been increased) bring the total
cost to the student to £1,315 over three years
(not
£1,315 a year
as has been suggested.
(2) The cost to the student would be greater were it not
directly subsidised by the Society and below cost tuition
given by members of the profession.
(3) Higher Education grants are available to students
entitled to grants.
(4) The Society has arranged Bank Loans, repayable
after the student qualifies, and scholarships and itself
gives bursaries —based on need. In the first course, five
apprentices secured scholarships or bursaries.
(5) The overall cost (including maintenance) to a new
regulations student is less than .to an old regulations
student because the new course of studies (which is much
more intensive) is compressed into a shorter time and also
because students who have completed their Professional
Course will be paid by their master solicitor — the minimum
recommended weekly wage being £30.
(6) None of the new regulations apprentices have been
charged a fee or premium by their master solicitor.
(7) The Society proposed limiting the number to 150 a
year and it does so for the following reasons:
(a) The Law is the only profession whose members
have increased and are increasing. Twenty years
ago 40/45 solicitors qualified a year; within the
past ten years, the number of solicitors has risen
from 1300 to 2200. As of now, over 200 solicitors
qualify yearly and there are 1100 students under
the old regulations of whom a large proportion will
qualify as solicitors.
(b) Between the present time and 1986, the number of
solicitors will increase from 2200 to more than
3300 —an increase of over 50% even though the
projected rise in population during the same period
will be 1% a year.
(c; The Society 's assessment of the Supply and Demand
for solicitors up to 1991 assumes increased numbers
of lawyers in industry, commerce and the public
service; it assumes continuing economic growth
demanding greater services in domestic and E.E.C.
law; it specifically takes the Pringle Committee
recommendations into account and allows for 100
solicitors engaged whole time in civil legal aid areas.
Even so, the projection ends up with a surplus of
solicitors in 1986.
(d) It would be a waste of resources as well as doing
no service to those students who end up as a
surplus to have anyone spend three or more years
qualifying as a solicitor and then find that there
were no employment opportunities in the
profession.
(8) The Higher Education Authority has
not
stated that
it is prepared to subsidise the new course. Indeed, it could
not make a grant to the Society at this stage because the
Society is not an institution to which the authority is
entitled to make such grants.
(9) It is sometimes alleged that the student body is
largely comprised of solicitors' children but of the 73
students on the first Professional Course, two are children
of solicitors, one a brother and one related to a solicitor as
a first cousin once removed.
(10) 73 Apprentices sought places in the first Pro-
fessional Course, 73 were granted places and all 73 have
embarked on the Course. None fell out because of the cost of
the Course.
(11) In March 1977 the Society, by circular letter to
all post-primary schools in the Republic — notified intend-
ing apprentices that there would be a limit of 150 places
in the Law School and that no guarantees of entry into
that school could be given to law graduates. The Society
concedes that those students who had entered the univer-
sity law faculties in 1975 and 1976 ought to have and will
have automatic entry into its Law School provided they
obtain their university law degree within a reasonable time
but this automatic entry arrangement does not extend to
students who commenced their university law course in
October 1977 and they will have to pass the Society's
entrance examination in the six core legal subjects already
mentioned. The Society does recognise that a problem
exists for those students by reason of the March closing
date for Central Applications Office applications in which
students would have set down their initial preference for
university courses. To meet that problem, the Society has
decided that for the Professional Course commencing in
November 1980 and for the next ensuing course, there will
be 150 places available for competition to gain entry into its
Law School in addition to die places for guaranteed
entrants. Thus, there will be 150 places available for com-
petition by the 1977 entrants into the B.C.L. courses at
U .C .C. and U.C .D. who will graduate in 19 80 - these being
the persons claiming that they were not properly informed—
together with the non-law graduates.
The purpose of the new course of training is to provide
the country with solicitors who can give the public the
highest quality of legal service. The Society believes that it
will do so.
3rd May, 1979.
R. W. RADLEY
M.Sc., C.Chem., M.R.I.C.
HANDWRITING AND
DOCUMENT EXAMINER
220, Elgar Road, Reading, Berkshire, England.
Telephone (0734) 81977
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