109 / 448
GAZETTE
V I E W P O I N T
Widening the River
APRIL /MAY 1996
Just as a river in spate, swollen by
excessive rainfall, will burst its banks
and inundate the surrounding country-
side, so the oversupplied solicitors'
profession must sweep aside the confines
of traditional private practice and irrigate
new professional territories.
The most likely new professional
territories are neither distant nor
unknown. The practice of law already
penetrates to substantial degrees 'other
worlds' such as those of commerce,
industry, financial services, industrial
relations, public administration - the
worlds of business and management in
the broadest sense of these terms.
What is or is not legally possible is
fundamental to every business decision.
Knowledge of the law is essential. Yet,
traditionally, a barrier has existed
between solicitors on one side of a line
and business managers on the other. This
demarcation needs to become very much
more permeable in the interests of those
on both sides.
the number of solicitors now
qualifying in Ireland is far
beyond the absorption capacity
of conventional private practice
It is both necessary for the profession
and desirable in the broader interests of
the Irish economy that greatly increased
numbers of solicitors should in future
pursue careers in business and
management, rather than in private legal
practice. Both the solicitors' profession
and the Irish economy would benefit. It
is necessary for the profession because of
the sheer numbers of newly-qualified
solicitors pouring onto the employment
market every year.
Richard Branson
recently remarked that there are now
more lawyers in America than there are
people! In Ireland, as in America, the
perception of oversupply is strong
outside the profession but is even
stronger within it.
All the indications are that the number of
solicitors now qualifying in Ireland is far
beyond the absorption capacity of
conventional private practice. Other
outlets must be found to reduce the
unemployment and underemployment of
these bright, knowledgeable and highly-
skilled young professionals. A broader
approach is necessary also because the
solicitors' profession today is
strategically vulnerable through over-
reliance on litigation, conveyancing and
probate.
The failure to use solicitors' knowledge
and skills much more widely in business,
management and elsewhere in the Irish
economy represents the under-utilisation
of a well qualified and valuable resource,
one which is much more fully utilised in
other developed economies. The
unfortunate confinement of lawyers to a
relatively narrow role in the worlds of
business and management in Ireland is
criticised for its lack of vision and its
conservatism by
Peter Sutherland
elsewhere in this
Gazette.
As
Peter Sutherland
points out, the skills
of the lawyer are readily transferable to
the field of management. Solicitor skills
such as analysis, communication,
administration, negotiation, advocacy and
drafting are among those which are most
valuable in the management world.
Indeed, the inter-personal skills developed
by solicitors are probably superior to
those of any other major profession.
The Law Society's Professional Training
Course in Blackhall Place now contains
management modules covering areas
such as strategic and financial
management, human resource
management, marketing, organisational
behaviour and other management topics.
Although these are provided at an
introductory level at present, the Society
has decided in principle to double the
length of its Professional Course from
four and a half months to a nine month
'academic year' to deepen and extend
these courses, in addition to adding
other, more specialised, legal subjects
mainly in the field of business law.
While these courses could never
constitute a replacement for a good
business degree, the combination of
both legal and business knowledge
will substantially widen the horizons
and consequent opportunities of
newly-qualified solicitors.
Perhaps the greatest success story in the
delivery of professional services at
national and international level over the
last few decades has been the apparently
inexorable rise of the accountants.
Solicitors should examine and learn from
the way in which the accountancy
profession has colonised new
professional territory in the financial and
management worlds, far beyond its
original core business of audit work. In
the course of this expansion process,
accountancy firms have recruited lawyers
in very substantial numbers with the
result that, measured in terms of numbers
of lawyers employed, Price Waterhouse
is now said to be the biggest law firm in I
Europe! Even the largest and most
'
cutting-edge solicitors' firms must sense
a growing challenge.
a 'win, win' strategy
For the Law Society to commit itself, as
it has done, to assisting solicitors to
develop knowledge and skills applicable
in the worlds of business and
management is a 'win win' strategy.
Only a minority of those qualifying will
ultimately make their careers as in-house
solicitors or in a variety of other
capacities in the worlds of business and
management. While opportunities and
horizons will have been opened for these
solicitors, the majority, who will
continue to go into private practice, will
run their firms and service their clients
much more effectively, efficiently and
profitably with management training.
The solicitors' profession today is like a
seething torrent confined in too narrow a
channel. It is in the process of bursting
its existing banks, not with a view simply
to providing a solution to temporary
internal pressures, but rather to a
controlled, positive and permanent
expansion of the river bed. A wider,
calmer, river and the more fertile
surrounding territory will be in the
interests of both.
Ken Murphy
93