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GAZETTE
AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 1994
Board of Directors which is presided
over by the Bátonnier.
While management decisions will be
taken by the Board of Directors, the
day-to-day running of the CARPA is
undertaken by a permanent staff. The
staff processes the lodgements of
client funds made to the CARPA
account, monitors the state of each
client account, undertakes the
investments of funds and provides
various services to practising avocats
such as photo-copying facilities,
electronic mail, assistance with
accounts etc.
Handling of Client Funds
The handling of client funds is done
through a bank account opened in the
name of CARPA. Each avocat is
authorised to sign cheques on the
account. As mentioned earlier, his
authority for doing so is by delegation
from the Bátonnier so that in the event
of misconduct, the authority can be
withdrawn. In practice, each avocat is
holder of a sub-account at the bank
where the CARPA account is held. In
order to ensure accurate monitoring of
transactions, an individual code is
attributed to each separate matter on
behalf of each client.
The bank handling the CARPA
account is required to monitor very
strictly each client account. All monies
lodged and withdrawn on a matter
must carry the corresponding code.
Hence, if for any reason, an account
shows a debit balance, CARPA is
immediately informed by the bank and
must forthwith require that the avocat
rectify the situation. The French Bar is
justly proud of the fact that the
profession maintains an impeccable
reputation for the handling of client
funds. Indeed, it is a mark of the
effectiveness of the scheme that
having been started by a small group
of Parisian avocats on a voluntary
basis in 1957, it ultimately became
mandatory for all members of the
profession by a law of 25 July, 1985.
CARPA Services to the Profession
and the Public
CARPA offers an extensive range of
services to the profession and the
public. They are entirely self-financed
from the proceeds of invested client
funds. Typically, a CARPA will
provide grants for students to enable
them undertake their law studies,
finance continuing education for
practising avocats, arrange health
insurance and retirement schemes for
its members, provide information to
the public as to their legal rights and
also financially assist legal aid schemes
(the CARPA remunerating the young
avocats involved). In addition, CARPA
meets its overheads from its income
and usually pays a proportion of its
revenues to the local Bar Council as a
contribution to the latter's operating
costs. It can be readily seen that
CARPA thus relieves the local Bar
Council of many of the more costly
services which it would otherwise have
to provide from its own resources. It is
interesting to note that the cost of a
practising certificate is relatively low
compared with England or Ireland. In
Toulouse, France's fourth largest city,
the current charge is 4,400 francs.
Jean-Henri Farné, the local Bátonnier,
estimates that if CARPA did not exist,
the cost of the practising certificate
could be as much as five times that
amount if the avocats were to provide
from their own resources the range of
services currently offered through
CARPA funding.
The Practitioner
's
View
French avocats are generally very
satisfied with the CARPA system in so
far as the benefits to the profession are
concerned. However, there are
frequent complaints of delays in the
processing of lodgements, typically
from 8 to 15 days. Big firms like
Clifford Chance which handle large
sums for corporate clients consider
that such delays impact on their own
image vis-a-vis the client as well as
that of the profession as a whole.
Gérard Honig,
partner in Paris-based
Honig Buffat Mettetal, a medium sized
business law firm, evokes the same
difficulty, mentioning that often, sums
have to be paid directly from client to
client although he points out that in a
debtor-creditor relationship the
practice runs the risk of a seizure on
the debtor's bank account since a
direct payment would provide the
creditor with the identity of the
account to be garnished.
Bátonnier Farné considers that the
CARPA has been an outstanding
success which he attributes to the fact
that it is a simple, uncomplicated
scheme. He believes that without the
CARPA, it is doubtful that the
profession would be able to offer the
same range of services in a large
provincial city like Toulouse. He also
points out that some of the CARPA
facilities available to the local avocats
have proved particularly invaluable
such as PAIE AVOCAT, a
computerised service for salary
administration which relieves avocats
of much of the paperwork involved in
dealing with staff remuneration.
Jean-
Pierre Dujfour
of Clifford Chance
(Paris) mentions the benefits of
AVOCATEL, a minitel online link
between law firms enabling avocats to
correspond by electronic mail and
which also provides link-ups to the
courts and to government registries.
The value of such a system for the
eleven thousand practitioners in Paris
is considerable. AVOCATEL also
operates in other French cities.
Alain Coroller-Bequet,
a sole
practitioner in the Breton town of
Quimper, points out that the CARPA
guarantee against misuse of client
funds gives the public a sense of
security and enables the profession to
maintain an excellent reputation, a
factor which benefits all firms,
regardless of size. He also considers
that the funding which CARPA
provides for the local Bar relieves the
avocats of a financial burden which
would otherwise be particularly
onerous for the sole practitioner.
A CARPA Scheme for the Law
Society?
As the Law Society continues to
examine ways and means of
minimising the burden of claims on
the Compensation Fund, it may find
positive elements in the CARPA
scheme of the French avocats. The
approach to the handling of client
funds is obviously very different from
that which prevails in Ireland but the
CARPA scheme has proved that it
works for both the profession and the
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