The Gazette 1994

GAZETTE

JUNE 1994

P o o r e m p l o y m e n t p r o s p e c t s f o r

s o l i c i t o r s r e p o r t e d

Solicitors (Amendment) Bill, 1994

The Irish Times

and

Irish Press

of 11

May, reported that

Liz O'Donnell

had put forward an amendment to the

Solicitors Bill at Committee Stage

seeking the introduction of a fine of

£1,000 for complainants who gave

false or misleading information to the

disciplinary tribunal of the High

Court. The Minister of State for

Justice promised to consider the

amendment but said that he did not

want to do anything "which would

discourage even one person with a

genuine complaint from coming

forward to the tribunal." On the same

day, the

Irish Independent

reported

that the Junior Justice Minister

had rejected an amendment to the Bill

which would have abolished the

compulsory examination in Irish.

Accident lead to claims

Remarks by

Dr. Patrick O 'Keeffe,

Chairman of the insurance company,

FBD, that the level of court awards

and the activities of "ambulance

chasing" solicitors were costing jobs,

damaging tourism and increasing the

costs of insurance, were reported in

the

Evening Herald

of 17 May and

The Irish Times

and

Independent

of 18

May. The

Independent

and

Cork

Evening Echo

of 18 May quoted a

spokeswoman for the Law Society

who said it was accidents that led to

claims, not the activities of solicitors.

The spokeswoman stated that the Law

Society would defend the right of

anyone who had been injured through

the fault of someone else to make a

valid claim for compensation.

Solicitors were entitled to advertise

their services and to offer advice to

people who had been injured.

Employment prospects for newly-

qualified solicitors

In an article focusing on

unemployment,

The Irish Times

on 27

April, reported on the case of

Francis

Keely,

a 22 year old law graduate with

a 2:1 primary degree and a masters

degree who had part-time work in

Dunnes Stores "and little else to

bolster her good humour and

optimism in the relentless search for a

solicitor's apprenticeship." The article

said that before Ms. Keely finished

her studies, she dispatched no fewer

than 150 applications to solicitors'

practices around the country. Since

she had obtained her masters degree,

she had sent off another 175. The

article said that her problem was that

she lacked contacts; "ideally this

would be a co-operative solicitor who

knew her father or mother, say, or

better still, happened to be her father

or mother."

A full page article in

The Irish Times

Education and Living Supplement,

published on 3 May, entitled "the

Hard Side of the Law" focused on the

difficulty that newly-qualified

solicitors were experiencing in

obtaining jobs and the initiatives the

Law Society was taking to try to

widen job opportunities for solicitors.

The article also highlighted the delay

in obtaining a place on a Professional

Course in the Law School. Concluding

the article,

Christina Murphy

commented "ironically, the crises in

both training places and job

opportunities for professional lawyers

have come at a time when the

extremely high earnings of a small

proportion of the professional are

being highlighted by the reports of the

Beef Tribunal . . . thus making law

even more attractive to school-leavers.

The reality is that this is just the tip of

the iceberg, with many lawyers

finding it difficult to make ends meet

at all."

The Education and Living Supplement

The Irish Times

of 24 May reported

on graduate employment. The article

noted that of 66 students on the

Advanced Course who had responded

to a survey on their employment

prospects last April, 25 has felt they

had no prospect of a job, 22 said they

had some hope, 8 felt they had a good

prospects of a job, 3 had received an

offer from the firm where they were

apprenticed and 7 had accepted offers

of jobs. A spokeswoman for the

Society was quoted as saying that

while law provided excellent training,

school leavers should not think of a

law degree solely as a means of

becoming a solicitor. "The growth in

the numbers of students who want to

study law is far greater than the

growth in demand for legal services."

Disciplinary/Compensation Fund

Following extensive press coverage in

all papers at the end of April and early

May of the mortgage difficulties being

faced by the entertainer,

Adele Agnew

(Twink), the evening papers of 27

April and the national daily papers of

28 April, reported that Twink was not

fully co-operating with the

Compensation Fund of the Law

Society concerning an outstanding

mortgage debt on her former home at

Anne Devlin Road, Dublin.

The

Evening Press

of 16 May and all

the national daily papers on 17 May

reported that the £30,000 mortgage

debt on the house had been paid off by

the Law Society. The papers reported

that Mrs. Agnew's counsel had told

Judge

Cyril Kelly

that the

requirements of the Law Society

concerning details of the claim had

been satisfied and agreement had been

reached.

The

Irish Press

and

Evening Press

17 May reported that papers detailing

how a solicitor,

William Keane,

had

forged the will of his aunt were to be

sent to "the Disciplinary Committee

of the Law Society" (sic). In the

course of an application to condemn

the will, counsel appearing for Mr.

Keane informed the court that his

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