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GAZETTE
' APRIL
1990
Law Society Annual General Meeting
EDUCATION MAJOR TOPIC AT AGM
The future of education of
entrants to the Profession was a
major topic at the Annual General
Meeting of the Incorporated Law
Society of Ireland held at Blackhall
Place, Dublin, on November 15th,
1989, under the chairmanship of
the President, Mr. Maurice R.
Curran.
After the formal business had
been accepted the President invited
comment on the Report of the
Council.
Mr. Raymond Monahan said that
he had been asked for a full debate
on the Law School and the general
issue of Education. Fundamental
decisions, which represented a
complete overhaul of the system
operated by the Law School since
1978 were needed, said Mr.
Monahan, and there was no doubt
that the consequences would be
felt by the Profession for many
years to come.
Having reviewed the establish-
ment of the Law School and
subsequent four High Court decis-
ions, he said that since 1986 the
Education Committee had been
effectively controlled by the Courts
and the Committee had no choice
but to ease such controls as ex-
isted. The Committee could
previously justify the results of this
system, which year after year gave
an approximate 150 students as
being sufficient to satisfy the
requirements of both the pro-
fession, the aspiring students and
the public.
"Today we have 400 students
attempting to gain access into
our Law School and pressure on
the system is inevitable".
This pressure, commencing with
the Court cases which proved that
the system was vulnerable, was
continued through the Press, where
the Committee and the Society had
been subjected to an unprece-
dented campaign. Politicians not
only questioned the system as it
operated but the right of the Law
Society to retain any control over
its own education. The Committee
had already put into train a detailed
reappraisal and the question at
issue was the extent of change and
the method of dealing with the
circumstances existing.
Sideoy side with this develop-
ment the President had inaugurated
a series of meetings with the uni-
versities where the depth of feeling
against the Law Society's system
was plain and the disadvantages of
it pointed out. It became clear that
the only possible Examination
exemption would be one to apply
to all law graduates from recog-
nised Universities in Ireland pro-
vided they had covered the six core
subjects required in the Society's
Examination.
The Society now had a clear-cut,
open and progressive system in
which discretion is removed from
the Committee and in which com-
pensation rules are a thing of the
past. The rules are clear, easily
applied and enforced and can be
readily defended.
Standards Control
To maintain control over standards
the Society had been instrumental
in establishing a Council for Legal
Education involving representatives
from all the faculties of the uni-
versities which is to oversee the
alignment of subjects within the
courses offered in the universities
and examined in the Society, and to
monitor and align the examination
to ensure that a proper standard is
maintained. The Society decides on
what basis and in what circum-
stances its exemptions will apply
and in this way controls standards.
The Education Committee in-
tends inviting a representative from
the Ombudsman's Office to attend
its meetings and, in particular, the
Declaration of Results Meeting. In
this way, the Society's system will
be above reproach, acceptable to
the profession and students alike
and can be recommended to both
Government and Dail Eireann,
particularly with a view to the
Solicitors' Bill which may well be
published in 1990. In this respect
the Society has been in corre-
spondence with the Minister for
Justice who pointed out that it was
inevitable that there would be
pressure for changes in the entry
requirements when the proposed
Solicitors' Bill is introduced in the
Oireachtas unless steps are taken
before then to meet reasonable
demands for reform and he re-
quested that the Society's pro-
posals for change be made known
before the Solicitors' Bill came
before the Dail.
To cater for the resultant influx of
entrants to the Law School, the
Committee has reorganised the
professional course so that four
separate courses will be com-
menced in 1990 with 95 students
in each and will run a further three
courses in 1991 in similar fashion.
It is anticipated that the present
influx of 450 students will
gradually decrease to between 250
and 270 per annum in future years.
This is a 30% increase having
regard to the numbers coming into
the Law School under the old
system in 1988.
Mr. Monahan concluded the
report of the Education Committee
by requesting the co-operation of
the profession in the case of con-
sultants and tutors in the Law
School and in the provision of
apprenticeship by Masters through-
out the country.
Commenting on the Education
Committee's report Mr. Quentin
Crivon asked if the Society was in
dereliction of its duty if it was
merely educating solicitors for
unemployment. Between 1983 and
1987 young solicitors were forced
to emigrate. The heavy competition
which obtained today would reduce
standards and the profession would
become merely a money-making
exercise. He asked if the Society
had yielded to pressure and if there
was any reason as to why the
solicitors' profession had been
singled out for such treatment. No
other profession was under the
same pressure. Certainly the Bar
was not under pressure. He was
very unhappy over the loss of
control over standards.
Mr. Laurence Shields agreed that
the Council of the Society had to
yield to pressure. It had, however,
shown determination to keep con-
trol of the quality of training and
still had that under control. A lot of
what had been done was un-
acceptable to a large number of
solicitors, according to Mr. Barry
Galvin, who said that the issue of
the re-organisation of the training
system had been debated at a
recent meeting of the Southern
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